Challenge

The holiday season starting with Black Friday had become a time to spend. The 92nd Street Y and the United Nations Foundation wanted to make it a time to give. We united thousands of influencers and partners to launch a holiday initiative, #GivingTuesday, to inspire people to contribute time and money to causes worldwide during a time focused on commerce.

Objectives

• Position #GivingTuesday as the official kickoff to the holiday giving season

• Increase awareness and participation among individuals, nonprofits, businesses and media

• Drive charitable donations on Tuesday, November 27, and beyond

Strategy

We based our plan on the theory of open-source philanthropy, designing #GivingTuesday as a platform that partners could easily use and promote. We took the concept viral by leveraging our 2,500 partners' networks. In addition, we strategized a collaborative plan using partners' communication teams to expand media reach and charted a big traditional and social media splash.

Execution

Among our aggressive outreach, we:

• Undertook a roll-out to nonprofit and top-tier media

• Tailored pitches for reporters covering sectors like philanthropy and social good

• Used all online platforms on launch day to share stories and photos about people giving back

Outcome

We ignited conversations worldwide, with 800-plus press hits (59m impressions), including two dozen philanthropy trade features. 50m people spread the word socially, resulting in milestone Twitter trending. Most important, multiple nonprofit partners recorded massive donations on November 27, and Blackbaud processed $10m in online donations, a 53% increase over the Tuesday after Thanksgiving 2011.

We kicked off #GivingTuesday with a media roll-out in September, then tailored pitches for reporters covering key sectors like social media and social good. We also empowered our 2,500 partners and SMAs with a communications toolkit including sample social media language and an engagement calendar. (Our only major campaign adaption: ramping up communications to the unprecedented number of partners; we had originally predicted 600.)

For our coordinated social effort, we used the #GivingTuesday hashtag in all references and Facebook and Twitter to update and attract advocates. Our SMAs met regularly through Google Hangouts and Twitter chats to strategize with the movement's founders. Our team also empowered partners, ambassadors and supporters to contribute to #GivingTuesday's blog. We created widgets, badges and a Thunderclap, which galvanized a million SoMe impressions. On November 27, we inspired others by using all online platforms to share stories and photos about people who were giving back.

Helped along by our 800-plus press hits (59m impressions) and 2.5m social impressions/tweets, charities worldwide activated advocates to get online, share the hashtag and give instead of buy. Fifty million supporters did so online, including the White House, Bill Gates and partners from Unilever to the Tacoma Art Museum. Most important, multiple small and large nonprofit partners alike recorded massive donations on November 27, showing a major return on investment through their no-cost #GivingTuesday partnership. And Blackbaud, which processes online donations for thousands of charities, reported a 53 percent increase in donations from the Tuesday after Thanksgiving 2011.