Forefront:  You are always the first to sign up for #ILGIve (which delights us)! Have #ILGive campaigns become ‘built in’ to your annual fundraising strategy? What do you use #ILGive campaigns for? (e.g. gaining new donors, volunteers, or raising money for a specific goal.)
Northern Illinois Food Bank: We look to giving days as an opportunity to test out new email and online fundraising strategies. With the creation of my role as Digital Marketing Manager in December 2016, the Food Bank is increasingly focused on improving online giving and engagement, which is integral to giving days like #ILGive and #GivingTuesday. We also use these campaigns to raise money and acquire new donors, of course.

Forefront: You were on the 2017 Leaderboard for most donors: 624! How do you get the word out about your #ILGive campaign to folks? When did you announce your campaign? Did you send out reminders? 

Northern Illinois Food Bank: We crafted an email and social media marketing campaign which launched a month prior to #GivingTuesday and concluded with Thank You messages after the giving day. We sent emails to our existing list, as well as worked with an advertising partner to promote our campaign through emails and display ads. We also ran a Facebook ad and boosted a post during #GivingTuesday. A reminder email went out two days prior to #GivingTuesday. And we sent four emails throughout the day on #GivingTuesday. Thank You emails, which shared the results and impact, went out the next day to two segmented groups (donors and non-donors).
Forefront: Did you have p2p fundraisers? How did you keep them engaged?

Northern Illinois Food Bank: P2P was not our focus for last year’s campaign, but we plan to incorporate a strategy for acquiring and engaging #GivingTuesday fundraisers in 2018.

Forefront: Did you arrange social media ambassadors?

Northern Illinois Food Bank: We encouraged our supporters to share our campaign on social media, but did not focus on activating social media ambassadors.
Forefront: Any other creative ideas that worked for you?

Northern Illinois Food Bank: We saw good engagement as a result of telling a “24-hour story” throughout the day, which shared the testimony of one of our neighbors in need over a series of several emails and social posts.We were also able to offer a 3-to-1 match up to a certain amount, and 2-to-1 match which led into our year-end campaign. We also regularly updated our audience on how we were progressing towards our fundraising goal, and used a live countdown clock in our emails and profile page. We set our fundraising goal a bit lower than we were expecting to raise. In the middle of the day, we were able to communicate to our supporters that they had already surpassed the initial goal and challenged them to reach the new goal – based on how quickly we reached our initial goal, we decided to double it. Even when that second goal was reached, our generous supporters continued to give!

#ILGiveCommunity, Illinois’ Spring giving day, is May 3rd! For 24 hours we’ll celebrate giving in Illinois by encouraging our friends and neighbors to give where they live. All Illinois nonprofits are invited to register, have fun with fundraising, and join the #ILGive movement! Learn more and register by visiting the #ILGive website. (Check out the tools, webinars, and downloadable graphics while you’re there!)