Giving Tuesday takes place this year on 1 December 2020, and all UK charities, voluntary organisations and community groups should get involved.

It’s a global event, held annually, to balance out people’s shopping sprees on Black Friday (which always takes place on the Friday after Thanksgiving) and Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving).

Giving Tuesday isn’t just about donating money to good causes – it can also mean donating time, energy and resources, or even just sharing something on social media. Here’s how we can inspire people to take up Giving Tuesday in the South West.

Promote your ties to Giving Tuesday in the days ahead

There are now 12 days to go until Giving Tuesday, so now is a good time to talk about it in all your communications – on your website, in social media content (use the hashtags #GivingTuesday and #GiveBack2020), and in newsletters. You can download free assets from the Giving Tuesday website.

You need to decide what your overall call to action is: what do you want people to do? Is money your main focus, or do you want more volunteers, social media followers, or maybe even trustees? Be clear on your aims, and agree them with senior staff, to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Give plenty of notice if you want people to do a task

Do you want people to do something creative or personal, like holding up a printed paper sign or gathering items to donate? If so, they will need fair warning. Let them know a few days in advance, and really push your task or challenge the day before, so everyone is ready on Giving Tuesday.

It will be difficult to drum up support for any task on the day that involves posting a picture of yourself (let’s face it, some people are working from home in their pyjamas now!) or printing something out (without access to office printers or public libraries, you’re relying on people having a printer at home). Try to keep it simple and accessible.

Take inspiration from Giving Tuesday UK

The UK Giving Tuesday Twitter account (@givingtuesdayuk) has already shared some great campaign ideas for #GiveBack2020, like suggesting that people who are currently working from home could donate the normal cost of their daily, weekly or monthly commute to a good cause.

We know that in-person fundraising events aren’t an option right now, but it’s important to make the most of spending changes in these strange times – if people are spending less money on leisure, commuting, socialising and holidays, they may want to pass some of those savings on. Share what certain amounts of money could be put towards.

Thank those who donated throughout the year

This particular Giving Tuesday comes at the end of a very difficult year, when fundraising has been hard and many fundraisers were furloughed. Now is a good time to thank the people and organisations who donated to you since January, whether that means thanking monthly donors or a school or business that held a charity event for your cause. This gives them a huge boost.

You can reuse old content, like images and quotes (as long as you have permission to use them in publicity materials), and statistics from reports. Shout loud about how supportive people have been. If you don’t have good images to share, try websites like pexels.com and unsplash.com for high-quality stock images that are free to use and will make an impact.

Don’t forget to join Voscur on social media on the day, and tell us what you’re up to – find us on Twitter and Facebook.