DAF Day is just days away. And if that makes you break a sweat, don’t worry. Whether you’re already on the DAF Day train or you’re just now considering it, it’s never too late to join in—especially with this list of actionable tips to help you launch your campaign in no time.
DAF giving could change everything
Right now, $230 billion in DAF funding is just waiting to be given to organizations like yours. But even though DAFs are an incredible resource, 42 percent of nonprofits don’t mention DAFs in their marketing. In short, DAFs have a major awareness problem—and DAF Day is seeking to solve it.
On October 10th, nonprofits, DAFs, and donors are coming together to unleash a wave of DAF giving to nonprofit organizations. Your donors want to drive the greatest possible impact, but since only 17 percent of US adults know what a DAF is, it’s up to you to tell them about philanthropy’s best kept secret—and now’s your chance!
The more supporters know about the power of DAFs, the more DAF donors you’ll have. Consider this: the DAF Fundraising Report revealed that once a donor sets up a DAF account, their giving increases by 96 percent. Imagine what you could do for your mission if all of your donors gave with a DAF.
Stand up your DAF Day campaign in a flash with these 10 tips
We spoke with marketing pros on how your organization can make the most of DAF Day. Our conversation featured:
Jess Campbell, Founder of Out in the Boons
Sonia Hildner, Founder of One Wild Goose
Mitch Stein, Head of Strategy, Chariot
Here are their top tips that you and your team can leverage today:
1. Talk about DAFs on your website
The first thing a donor will do before making a DAF gift to your organization is search for your website. When someone lands on your website, what will they find? Will they see an invitation to give via DAF, and if so, is it easy for them to find the information they need?
If your website could use a DAF-centric, follow these tips to encourage and support DAF giving:
Create a dedicated DAF giving page on your website.
In the “Ways to Give” section of your website, you’ll want to include a mention of donor advised funds and link to a DAF giving page within your site that includes:
101 info on donor advised funds: There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Copy and paste our DAF 101 content and tailor it to your nonprofit.
Your EIN: If you don’t use DAFpay for DAF donation processing, a donor will need your EIN to look up your organization and give.
Quick pro tips
Get inspiration from stunning DAF pages on these websites: March of Dimes, American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen, and Michael J. Fox Foundation.
Ask a friend to make a DAF donation on your website, but don’t tell them how to do it. Did they have questions? Consider any aspect of the process that confuses them an opportunity to improve it.
Don’t stop at your website. Most DAF platforms pull information from your nonprofit’s profile on Candid. Visit Candid today to ensure your profile—especially your EIN—is correct.
2. Equip donors to give in three clicks with DAFpay
Let’s face it: the traditional DAF donation process could be a lot easier.
Historically, DAF donors visit a DAF portal to request that a grant be sent from their DAF account. Next, a DAF manager serves as a middle person in the process and sends a grant to the donor’s chosen nonprofit.
Oftentimes, this process takes weeks, and the donor’s name and contact information are left off the gift, making it difficult for the nonprofit to thank that donor or re-engage them in the future.
Fortunately, DAFpay is changing the way DAF donations are made. When your organization adds a DAFpay button to your donation form, a donor can give via DAF in just three clicks. And best of all, your nonprofit gets the funds right away directly from the donor—along with their contact information.
Chances are, your fundraising platform already has DAFpay enabled, and you just need to turn it on. See if your fundraising platform is on our integrated partners list.
If yours isn’t set with DAFpay, you can opt to create your campaign using a crowdfunding site that has DAF Pay enabled, such as GoFundMe, Pledge, and GiveButter.
Whether your fundraising platform is already on board or you’d like to create a one-off DAF Day giving page, check out these six easy ways to get equipped with DAFpay in just minutes.
Access DAFPay for Free
It's easy to get equipped
with DAFpay in just minutes.
3. Sign up to get the free DAF Day Marketing Toolkit
The DAF Day Marketing Toolkit is packed with Canva templates for a ready-made DAF Day campaign. It includes color palettes, logos, and social media assets you can copy and repurpose using Canva, which makes it easy to incorporate your nonprofit’s brand and mission.
Get your Marketing Toolkit Now
Join the DAF Day movement, and we’ll
send campaign assets right to your inbox.
Quick pro tip: When you receive a link to the toolkit, go to File > Make a copy for any asset you’d like to edit.
4. Add your organization to the DAF Day Donate Page
Many donors will celebrate DAF Day by checking out the dafday.com website. Make sure your organization is featured as a participating nonprofit by claiming your Chariot account and answering the two DAF Day questions in your dashboard (your logo + your preferred DAF Giving URL).
5. Set goals with a dedicated DAF Day team
Donors love a goalpost, and so does your team. When you’re aligned on the Why? of your campaign, the How? will follow much more easily.
Once you’ve rounded up a handful of team members who can lend their efforts to your DAF Day campaign, craft an internal power statement.
A power statement is like an affirmation, but it’s more than a feel-good exercise. It’s the North Star of your DAF Day campaign. A power statement for a food pantry could be:
You have the power to fund a new refrigerated truck to reach hundreds more residents in need. That statement can translate to donors as,”When you help Marigold Food Pantry raise $100,000 on DAF Day, you help fund a refrigerated truck to reach hundreds more residents in need in our community.
From there, think about what it will take to achieve that goal. What is your average DAF donation? How many will you need to receive to reach that number? How many new DAF donors could join your current ones and make that goal a reality? How will you spread the word?
6. Call your enthusiastic DAF donors
DAF donors come in all shapes and sizes, and the best way to engage this diverse community is to ask them why they give with their DAF, along with the types of stories that resonate with them.
Not to mention, you can make sure your highly-engaged DAF donors give on October 10th and spread the word to their colleagues and friends.
7. Create a DAF Day marketing plan
To create a hit campaign, your team needs to rally around a definitive plan. Follow these guidelines to shape your communications, from content themes to cadence.
Meet your donors where they are.
There’s no need to spread yourself thin and start engaging on channels you haven’t yet invested in.
Where are your donors today? If that’s LinkedIn and email, then focus on those avenues. If it’s email, Facebook, and Instagram, then those three are the main attractions of your campaign—although it’s always a good idea to share about your organization’s DAF Day participation from your personal LinkedIn and social media accounts.
Follow best practices for each channel.
Every channel has its must-dos and current trends, and if you want to make the most of your posts, it’s best to pay attention to them.
If you’re posting on Instagram, carousels and reels are king. (If you get the DAF Day Marketing Toolkit, a carousel is included.) When you’re drafting a lengthier post on LinkedIn, make sure that the first line is incredibly compelling. That way you’ll gain lots of readers who are willing to click “Read more” and see the full story below the truncated content.
Determine the right email frequency.
Data shows the more emails you send, the more money you'll raise. That said, “more” is different from one organization to the next.
For example, if your nonprofit sends a single quarterly email, you won’t want to send multiple emails in a single day out of nowhere. Instead, you’ll need to warm up your audience to that cadence by increasing email communication to once or twice a week leading up to DAF Day.
On the other hand, if your organization emails your donor list once a week, those donors are primed and ready for a flurry of DAF Day communications.
Consider these suggested DAF Day emails.
DAF Day is just days away, so each message has to count. Consider adding these emails to your marketing plan to encourage as many people as possible to join in. If you can, segment by DAF and non-DAF donors and tailor the message accordingly.
Join us on DAF Day: Send an introductory email with your DAF Day fundraising goal, an invitation for donors to give, along with DAF 101 information for the non-DAF donor segment.
DAF Day reminder: Send an email on October 9th reminding donors about your goal and their impact when they pitch in. If donors pledged to match their gift, this is the perfect time to mention it.
Morning kickoff: Send an email on the morning of October 10th that serves as a kickoff for your fundraiser and links to your donation page.
Evening last call: Send a final email letting donors know how close you are to your goal and thanking them for participating by giving and sharing your campaign on social media.
Quick pro tips
Send your emails from a person instead of your organization. For example, if donors are used to seeing your nonprofit’s name in their inbox, it might not stand out. However if they see a “Jamie Schultz” as the sender, they’re more likely to want to find out what the email is about.
Try using CAPS in your subject line to capture donors’ attention. For example: TOMORROW: For 24 hours, your DAF gift will be doubled
Toss an emoji in the front of the subject line or play around with the preview text by adding a string of emojis as the first six characters, like: ❗❗❗❗❗❗
Get instant feedback and suggestions to improve your subject lines at subjectline.com.
Create social content that speaks to various types of DAF donors
See examples of content by DAF donor type in this template-packed article.
Don’t be shy—keep asking!
No, you’re not annoying your donors by posting more than once a day. Remember, people aren’t digesting your campaign in a linear way.
In fact, they likely won’t even see each post you make or email you send given how crowded the digital world is. And this isn’t just a challenge for your organization—engagement is down everywhere. But that’s okay! All you’re aiming for is an impression, a chance to get in front of people who care about your mission.
8. Update your LinkedIn profile
As a fundraiser, you’re probably planning on spreading the word about DAF Day to your network on LinkedIn.
Lucky for you, we’ve created a LinkedIn profile image template that lets everyone know you’re in for October 10th. Here’s how to add a DAF Day image treatment to your profile image:
Drag and drop your photo into the image asset.
Download the image.
Upload the image to your LinkedIn profile.
Once your photo is set for DAF Day, upload the DAF Day LinkedIn background image to match.
9. Create a DAF Day landing page
Your DAF Day deserves its own landing page for a number of reasons that will lend to your future DAF fundraising strategy. Here’s why:
Since storytelling lives at the heart of the most successful campaigns, connecting your ask to DAF Day on its own page empowers you to tailor your ask to the spirit of the day. Be sure to spotlight a DAF donor via video or by using written quotes that communicate why they love supporting your mission using their DAF account.
DAF Day is brand new, so you have an awesome opportunity to rank for the term “DAF Day” by following this URL format: yourorganization.org/dafday. For this year and next year’s DAF Day, this page will be SEO gold.
By asking people to sign up on your landing page, you’re building a list of donor leads who are interested in giving via DAF and participating in DAF Day. One great idea is to create a downloadable DAF explainer that requires an email.
If your organization uses Google Ads (remember nonprofits are eligible for Google Ad grants!), pointing your ads to a page that is specific to DAF Day versus your website will directly relate to the search terms you’ve chosen. This way, donors who click through your ads will land directly on the CTA you want them to engage with.
We love how the Michael J. Fox Foundation approached its DAF Day landing page. Take a look and follow their lead.
10. Map out a plan for October 11th
How are you thanking the DAF donors who make your DAF Day campaign a success? Make sure no one gets missed by deciding your day-after plan before DAF Day is done.
Consider these options:
Personal emails: Michael J. Fox receives a 50 percent response rate to their DAFpay thank you emails. How’s that for instant re-engagement?
Handwritten notes: Receiving a letter is always meaningful.
Text messages: You can bet donors will check their phones.
Voice memos: “It’s like a little cameo from your favorite nonprofit.”
No matter which thank-you methods you choose, be mindful that gifts that don’t come through DAFpay will have a waiting period before you receive the funds.
Because of this tricky process, we also recommend sending a generic DAF Day email to all donors the following day. Instead of explicitly saying, “Thank you for your donation,” you can update donors on your fundraising results, remind them about the power of DAF giving, and communicate how grateful you are to belong to such a wonderful community.
We’re here for you
If you need help getting set with DAFpay or have questions about your DAF Day campaign, reach out anytime to the DAF Day team.
Comments