This post was first made in 2017 and has been updated for the 2018 season.
Fill out the form to download the below guide as a starting point for building a plan for your organization.
It was only six years ago that Giving Tuesday was invented, and now it has become a household word, even for those outside of the nonprofit world. It has become part of the November Quadfecta of Thanksgiving–a rare American holiday that does not traditionally include the exchanging of gifts–and the associated spending events of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday. Though many of us are excited to binge-watch 12 hours of football or buy an absurdly cheap television, those of us who work on behalf of nonprofits are anxious about the start of giving season.
In the first year of Giving Tuesday, it was sufficient to make a post on social media with the hashtag #GivingTuesday. Now, with more businesses and nonprofits involved, simply using the hashtag isn’t enough. There are more opportunities you need to pursue and more competing nonprofits going after those same opportunities. This requires prior planning, particularly with the Paypal and Facebook matching donations.
Summary of the Giving Tuesday Matching Gifts on Facebook
Paypal is matching donations made through Facebook on Giving Tuesday. I encourage you to check out Facebook’s own explanation of program and rules, but below are some key details:
- Matching donations begins at 8 A.M. Eastern Time (5 A.M. Pacific Time) on November 27th
- PayPal is offering a total of $7 million to all nonprofits combined
- When this fund is gone, they will stop matching donations
- Paypal is offering a maximum match of $250,000 per nonprofit from this fund
- Paypal is offering a maximum match of $20,000 per donor
- Facebook will waive all processing fees for every donation on Giving Tuesday
Last Year’s Stats
If you look at Facebook’s report on performance in 2017, it’s readily apparent that the mere possibility of receiving matching funds coaxed more people into donating. $45 million was raised on Facebook that day, which far outstretched what was required to gain the matching donations. This $45 million was raised by 473 thousand donations made to 47 thousand nonprofits.
Get Started Now
You should get started with your plan right now by downloading the form at the top of this article. You want to give yourself a fair amount of breathing room to give Facebook time to verify your charity status. And even if you’re already verified, you want to build a plan for getting donations prior to the event.
Keep in mind that the matching will be gone in a few hours and the free processing will only be on that day. You can’t do a belated Giving Tuesday event in the same way you can do a belated birthday party. If you’re late, it’s over.
As clients of my Google Grants management service, you are welcome to whatever free help you need, whether it is with the technical details of verifying yourself as a charity with Facebook or advice on a gameplan that fits your organization’s needs. If you aren’t a client, you can sign up for a no-commitment free trial of my Google Grants management service to access this assistance. So you’ll get help with setting up accounts on two super-powerful platforms completely free. I’ll do this until November 27th, so consider this my Giving Tuesday giveaway.