Ep. 221: Recruit 5 Peer Fundraisers Before Giving Tuesday
EPISODE 221
Recruit 5 Peer Fundraisers Before Giving Tuesday
About the Episode:
Giving Tuesday is December 1, day one of the biggest giving month of the year. For a lot of nonprofits, it’s also the last day they really ask big.
Giving Tuesday is one of the best days of the year to recruit peer fundraisers: the people who’ll carry your ask into their own communities all the way to December 31. I’ll show you why you only need five to start, what the 2025 Giving Tuesday numbers say about the so-called generosity crisis, and how small teams have gone from a few thousand dollars to multi five figures without adding staff. Plus: what happens to all those new donors on December 2, and what a house party can teach you about keeping them.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
Why Giving Tuesday is one of the best days of the year to recruit peer fundraisers
How peer fundraising works, and why you can start with five people
What last year’s Giving Tuesday numbers reveal about the so-called generosity crisis
How small teams grew Giving Tuesday results without a bigger staff or audience
Who makes a good peer fundraiser (and who doesn’t)
The 30-day window most nonprofits miss with new Giving Tuesday donors
How to use state giving days (Colorado Gives, Texas Gives) the same way
It’s not your stories—it’s how you’re telling them. If your amazing work isn’t getting the attention (and donations) it deserves, it’s time for a messaging shift. The Brave Fundraiser’s Guide guide gives you 10 done-for-you donor prompts to make your message impossible to ignore. Get it for free here! https://christinaedwards.krtra.com/t/xKuLs6tOiPZa
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
“Giving Tuesday was never only meant to be about money.”
“What if instead Giving Tuesday was the day you invited new people into your mission?”
“Peer fundraising is where you are leveraging your network.”
“Giving Tuesday and Giving Days are one of the best days of the year to recruit fundraisers, not just recruit donors.”
“Maybe you or your board member doesn't like Giving Tuesday. So what? You can't build your strategy around your personal preferences.”
“You should be recruiting on Giving Tuesday the people who will carry your ask into their own communities all the way to the end of the year.”
“Raise money, raise as much as you can, hit the gas on Giving Tuesday, but think bigger than those 24 hours.”
Nonprofits received 37% of their 2025 online revenue in December, with 10% arriving in the last week of the year and 4% on December 31 alone. 2026 M+R Benchmarks Study
“Total Dollars Donated, US: $4.0 billion, an increase of 13% compared to GivingTuesday 2024.” 2025 Giving Tuesday numbers
“Total Participants, US: 38.1 million, an increase of 6% compared to GivingTuesday 2024.” 2025 Giving Tuesday numbers
“Participants who made financial contributions, US: 19.1 million, an increase of 3% compared to GivingTuesday 2024.” 2025 Giving Tuesday numbers
“Participants who volunteered, US: 11.1 million, an increase of 20% compared to GivingTuesday 2024.” 2025 Giving Tuesday numbers
“Participants who spoke out about causes, US: 20.9 million, an increase of 26% compared to GivingTuesday 2024.” 2025 Giving Tuesday numbers
Episode Resources:
FREE Resources from Splendid Consulting:
How to Work with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
Get your Giving Tuesday Emails or Year-End Appeal Rebuilt Before December 1 - Grab your spot before November 18
Connect with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
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Christina Edwards 0:42
This. is the biggest giving month of the year, and Giving Tuesday is December 1. That's day one, day one of the month. But for a lot of organizations, it's also the last day they really ask big. They go all in for 24 hours, maybe even a few days, but they go quiet for the collective 30 days that matter most. Think about it. It's like a store that runs a huge Black Friday sale, but then closes for the rest of the holiday season. That would be wild, right? We know Black Friday is huge for retail, but can you even imagine if your favorite store had a big Black Friday event, big sale, and then they were like, "See you next year! Bye, we're done. Great, what are you even doing? But that's what a lot of organizations do with Giving Tuesday. By the end of the episode, I'll tell you what you should be doing, who you should be recruiting on Giving Tuesday, and it's not just donors. More people are starting to realize it more and more. Maybe even your organization has take on taken this on as well. That Giving Tuesday is a part of your year-end strategy. It's not necessarily the main course, and it's not your "quote unquote" year-end. Let's look into this closer. There's a huge group of organizations who are still doing this. They're stuck in, well, Giving Tuesday is that one big push, and making it their entire year end strategy, but when we look at December, 37% of online revenue comes in December. 4% comes on december 31 alone. Giving Tuesday is the ingredient, not the full recipe. You with me? It's part of it, but not the whole thing. Let's look at some Giving Tuesday 2025 numbers. Now, based in the U.S. it's these are the numbers that I have available: 4 billion donated, up 13% from 2024. So you can't say, you know, there's a generosity crisis. It's just so hard right now. The numbers are up and to the right. Giving Tuesday year after year after year. It is gaining traction, not plateauing and not decreasing in traction. 38 point 1 million people participated last year. That was up up 6% 19 point 1 million gave money. That means they donated up 3% Volunteers rose 20% Speak people advocating, speaking about causes rose 26% Y'all with me? These are all up. These are all positives. So nearly 19 million people participated in ways beyond financial giving. What does that mean? They volunteered. They showed up. They spoke up. They advocated. At its core, I want you to think about what you've been doing historically for your organization, and if it's been, it's all on me fundraising. It's all on our organization fundraising. Has that been your Giving Tuesday strategy, where we're going to talk about Giving Tuesday, and I want to make a little asterisk. If you participate in your state's Giving Day, so maybe your Giving Day is a different day. I know we have clients who do Texas gives, Colorado gives; those are on different days, and maybe that's your Giving Tuesday. Please swap that out for what I'm saying because the same applies for you. So, at its core, even the state giving days, even if they're not in December, they are a community day, meaning it's a day to bring your people together: your volunteers, your supporters, your board, your advocates, your social followers, everyone. Together means together online, together. In person, together in conversation, Giving Tuesday was never only meant to be about money. So I want you to think about how nonprofits historically approach Giving Tuesday. Love it, hate it, do it begrudgingly. Right? You might email your list. I see a lot of organizations really pour their heart and soul into social media. So you do lots of social posts, lots of you know email outreach, things like that, and you're asking your donors to give, and you should, but you're asking that same audience who you've been talking to all year. You with me? It's the same audience that you sent your spring appeal to, that your fall fundraising drive went to.
Christina Edwards 5:56
Meanwhile, you have board members, volunteers, donors, supporters, social followers, committee members, maybe your junior advisory board, who collectively know 1000s of people who have never heard of your organization, right? Your followers, followers, right? What if instead Giving Tuesday was the day you invited new people into your mission, instead of only asking the people who are already there, or instead of only hoping somehow, because there is a brand Giving Tuesday that people magically find you, right? They go from never hearing about you to new donor all in that one day, and yes, that can happen. But I'm going to share with you the easier, faster way to make that happen, right? So you've got those collective supporters, board members, donors, And they are your built-in audience amplifiers. Now, Giving Tuesday doesn't have to be just one day. You can stretch it out into a week. Now, I'm not saying talk about Giving Tuesday for like the next 30 to 60 days. That's too much. But you can use the day to do something in person or bring your group together online, bringing your board together, your volunteers together, and they don't just have to fundraise. They can invite people in. Let's drill into fundraising first because primarily that's what we want, right? That's the big goal. So it is an incredible day, and it might be my favorite day for peer fundraising. So peer fundraising, as at its core, is where you are leveraging your network. So you've got that superstar donor or volunteer, and instead of asking them to donate, or instead of asking them to like just share your fundraiser, instead they are signing up and creating their fundraiser within your main campaign. So if you're trying to raise $10,000 on Giving Tuesday, they may personally try to raise $500 of that 10,000. You with me, and you end up having mini fundraisers who are fundraising on behalf of and supporting your big goal. So it is a great day for that because it naturally has that momentum around it. And you don't need 100 people; you can start with five. Many of our sprinters start with five, five people who care, who already know, like, and trust your organization, who are willing to personally invite others in, and I am not talking about posting a donation link on Facebook and hoping somebody clicks. Okay, and I am not talking about going to reach out to some influencer or celebrity online and hoping that they just push your your fundraising page in front of their audience, and suddenly you raise 1000s. Right? the The idea of peer fundraising at its core is leveraging people who you already have a relationship with, right? And then the social street team method, which is what I teach inside of the club, is an advanced version of that, where we have a system, a whole system behind who you recruit, what you ask them to do, and how you can set them up to succeed, especially creators and influencers, those with large engaged communities online. So, if you're in the club, if you've heard me talk about the social street team, Giving Tuesday is a powerful way to mobilize your street team because that's a natural way where influencers online who normally aren't talking about causes, aren't talking about donating, and the other 364 days of the year naturally are like, "Ooh, it's Giving Tuesday! Like, I want to lift, I want to lift up a cause and bring my community in to support that cause. So it's a really great way to do it. Okay, so I absolutely want you raising money on Giving Tuesday. I want you setting a goal, emailing the ask, making the ask, one to one outreach, all of those pieces. But I also want you to think about who is going to make those asks with us, alongside of us, because the organizations that are raising $10,000, $30,000, $50,000 in Giving Tuesday aren't necessarily doing more work. Hear me when I say that it's true. they're getting more people involved in doing the work together. and that's why Giving Tuesday and Giving Days are one of the best days of the year to recruit fundraisers, not just recruit donors.
Christina Edwards 11:09
So recruiting those audience amplifiers, recruiting those peer fundraisers. Let's talk about what this looks like in real time. I've worked with a director of development who had the fun role, the hybrid role. We get a lot of small shop directors of development where they're also in charge of communications and marketing, as this one was. And she used the social street team method to 5x her Giving Tuesday donations in one campaign, 5x year over year. We also have an executive director, and she went from raising $10,000 on one Giving Tuesday to nearly $20,000 the next Giving Tuesday, all the way up to over $30,000, and using Giving Tuesday as an inflection point of your year-end campaign, instead of your year-end campaign on its own, you with me on an island. It's like this is it. And y'all, I've worked with so many of you who are small teams, maybe an executive director and Director of Development, who historically kind of loathed Giving Tuesday, like did it begrudgingly, did it out of just have to energy, did it out of we'll see what happens this year, maybe raising a few $1,000, and now using this system, plugging it in to a sprint campaign, not just stopping when the day is over, raising multi five figures. You don't have to have a huge staff for this. You don't have to have a group of highly wealthy donors to win Giving Tuesday. You don't have to have a big audience. You don't have to go viral on social media. You don't have to figure that out. Okay, this is about audience amplifiers. This is about getting out of solo fundraising mode and bringing in your community for a day of giving. This is what happens in the club year after year after year. We teach a campaign process, an advanced form of running sprints. We're giving Tuesdays really one part, one essential part of your year-end strategy, and it converts so well because you're not doing it on a whim. It's part of a bigger strategy, and this works across all cause areas. You're not allowed to say, "I'm not an animal rescue, so it's just not a good day for us, or I'm just you know we serve this community. It's just not a good day for us, or it's such a noisy day online, and you know there's just so many. There's everybody's just really fatigued about it, and no one really wants to hear it. No, that's you. That's your opinion, right? That's your opinion about it. Now, I find this personally baffling, but there are people out there who don't like coffee. They don't like coffee. They don't drink coffee. I don't know how y'all exist in the morning. I don't know what that's like. You don't like the taste of coffee. You're not coffee drinkers. Can you imagine if people were like, "Well, I wanted to open a coffee shop, but I'm not going to because you know people don't like coffee. Like that is that is not the way to build your funding. That is not the way to build your revenue. So you might not like it. Maybe your board member doesn't like Giving Tuesday. Maybe you personally find it to be a noisy day online. And so what? You can't build your strategy around your personal preferences. With me. And here's where a lot of nonprofits leave money on the table. They have big, bold Giving Tuesday goals. New people show up. They give. New donors give. Repeat donors give. They're excited. And what happens? What happens in that honeymoon period? Well, that donor gets a tax receipt, maybe a generic thank you. You have 30 days to build a relationship with somebody who literally raised their hand for the first time and said, "I care about this. I care about what you're doing. Yes, those new donors and supporters shouldn't disappear into the oblivion of your database. They should hear from you again, and they should hear from you again quickly. They should know what their participation made possible. And they should know. They should have another reason to stay involved to give again. What are you doing with this opportunity? You with me? Imagine you had a party at your house. You maybe just moved into a new neighborhood, and you had your group of friends that you knew lived in the area.
Christina Edwards 16:35
They all came, but everybody also brought some friends, and maybe some people who live in the neighboring streets also came over in the neighborhood, and then you were like, "Well, I'll see you when I see you, and like no relationship was cultivated. You still just go back to like the five friends that you knew going into the party. You with me? But meanwhile, all these people showed up, and there was some really aligned interest. Somebody loves to play pickleball, just like you do. Somebody also has a Boston Terrier, just like you do, right? And you just missed it. You just were like, "Well, I mean, maybe I'll run into them at the dog park. That's what some of y'all are doing at Giving Tuesday, especially the ones who do really well on Giving Tuesday. Y'all are getting an influx of new donors, and you are not mining for the gold there, the connection there, the opportunity there. So let's talk about who you should be recruiting on Giving Tuesday: the people who will carry your ask into their own communities all the way to the end of the year, the passionate supporters, the vocal advocates, the people who just are already leaned in and engaged. We are not looking for who knows wealthy people. Don't do that. Not for Giving Tuesday. We're looking for who cares about this cause. Who's already passionate? Who already shows up? Giving Tuesday this year is december 1. Your year-end campaign isn't over until december 31. Now I want you to take time off for the holidays. I want you to rest. I want you to schedule your stuff out, your content out, your emails out, your social posts out, so that you can do those things. What I don't want you to do is say that was so hard. Giving Tuesday was so hard. I'm not doing it much more. I'm not going to wear people out. And then, of course, you prove that true. You don't do much anymore. You don't wear want to wear people out, and so you don't ask anymore, and you don't ask with with bravery. You don't ask with boldness. You're not magnetically drawing more people in, and then you don't raise more. Versus, this is an inflection point of our campaign. Our community is coming together, and I can't wait to see who donates on this day, and to create the relationships from the people who do so yes, raise money, raise as much as you can, hit the gas on Giving Tuesday, but think bigger than those 24 hours. Do not make that if then. If I don't make my goal, then it was a wash. Fail forward, find the win, and if you win, if you hit or exceed your goal, great. That doesn't mean it's the end. What if that's just the beginning? Who are you bringing into your community, and what are you going to do with those relationships in the next 30 days? and before your Giving Tuesday emails or year-end appeal goes out, send them to me. I'm doing a year-end appeal teardown. I'll review up to three emails from one campaign or one entire direct mail package, you'll get a complete video walkthrough, marked up copy, one page projection, what to send, what not to send, back within five business days. It's only 297$ for this, and I'm only taking five. So go to splendidcourses.com forward slash. Tear down. If you want to snag that, I highly recommend it. Grab your spot before november 18, so you can get it back in time for Giving Tuesday. All right, I'll see you next week.