What's Included Here

In this toolkit, we included a few items to help you get started in this membership-wide campaign. You can co-brand them by adding your logo or use them as-is to help engage donors by asking them to give again or share with their network of friends. Whether you add your own logo or use them as-is, they’re designed to create the feel of a unified North American campaign across all our members everywhere.

Here are the items you’re welcome to use:

• A 10-second video you can co-brand, edit onto your own videos (as an intro/outro), or use as is directly on your website and social media pages
• Graphics you can encourage your donors to add to their profile and add to your own organization’s official social media or website pages
• Guidelines on how to encourage your donors to participate in this campaign with communication ideas, key messages, and sample social media posts

Your team is more than welcome to access the templates of graphics designed, all hosted on Canva, which you can access by creating a free account if you haven’t already:

Here is the video you can download to add to your social and email content. You're welcome to either use as-is or edit it with your own branding. Feel free to post the video on your own site or YouTube channel!

Reaching Out to Your Donors

Here are some ideas on how you can take advantage of this campaign and tie it into your existing outreach plans for November:

Website Page––

• Give your donors and their network a website landing page where they can learn more about your campaign and take action all in one place
• On that page, you can include some of the key messages for this campaign, embed the campaign video, graphics for your top donors to download and use on their own social profiles, and a link or embedded donation form right on the page
• The key is to keep the entire page void of any links that would take them away from the donation page as much as possible

Email Campaigns––

• If you're already sending updates to your donors, you can add a section highlighting the campaign. Focus all of your messaging to lead your donors to “share or donate” (consider that one call-to-action) and link to those pages on your website directly
• Since Thanksgiving and Giving Tuesday are just a couple weeks away, don’t be shy to show urgency in your messages. Consider increasing your emails from once to twice weekly, with different key messages you can focus on, but all with the same call-to-action (“share or donate”) hyperlinked to the right pages.

Social Media Posts––

• Don’t be shy posting on your social media channels––even if your organization isn’t very active. Now is the best time to start. Add the images in this toolkit to your FB header, and post some of your donor impact stories, key stats about your organization’s initiatives, and a call-to-action for your followers to donate or share.
• If you’re on Twitter or LinkedIn, you can also tie your posts with the campaign by using this hashtag in all your related posts: #GiveToHealthcare
• Encourage your donors to share the message! Your most active and dedicated donors may be willing to share their love for your organization in support of your Gratitude Campaign. See below for some sample messages you can send along to your donors.

Tracking Performance––

• Whenever you send an email or social media post with a link to your landing page, be sure to add UTM parameters to the URL. If your team is able to track website performance with Google Analytics, this trick will help you see how effective your communications are!

Key Messages

Gratitude––

• We’re enormously grateful for all your support during this difficult year
• You were there for us when we needed you
• COVID was hard on our community, but you made sure to keep our doors open
• Thank you for being there when we needed you most
• We’re grateful for you and your commitment to our institution and our community

Your Impact––

• Because you care and took action, collectively we received $X in donations to help us protect our frontline workers and community members during the COVID-19 pandemic this summer
• With your donation we were able to do XYZ
• As a result of your generosity:
  • X PPE was purchased for our Y frontline workers
  • X COVID-19 tests were offered through our locations
  • X ventilators were purchased
  • X beds were added
  • X COVID-19 patients were cared for
  • Etc.

If you don’t have your own stories to share, you can still talk about general donor impact by sharing the stories of other organizations, such as these:

• When the University of Washington Medical Center was designated a testing center, it lacked the money to perform the testing because government funds had not arrived yet.” Two donors were able to give an eight-figure gift. “It’s a bridge function until the public money can get there,” said one donor in this NY Times article

We Still Need Your Help––

• COVID-19 numbers are growing again which means our work isn’t done
• We need help keeping up with expenses in PPE/staff/free community services/etc. In order for us to continue bringing care to those in our community
• Our work hasn’t stopped, and our hospital caregivers are still working long hours making up for staff shortage. Help us show them that our community hasn’t forgotten them.

If you don’t have specific needs you can share with your donors for this campaign, you can post more general needs and cite some sources, like this article explaining how hospital expenses are actually rising.

Sample Social Media Posts

Here are a few sample social media posts you’re welcome to modify for your different social platforms and audiences:

• When it comes to healthcare, you make all the difference. Thank you for continuing to give your time, skills, voice, dollars, and support to [org name] #GiveToHealthcare #HealthcareThanksYou

• When it comes to healthcare, you make all the difference. Your donations have allowed us to [specific examples with supporting data], and for that, we are grateful. Thank you for continuing to give your time, skills, voice, dollars, and support to us! #GiveToHealthcare #HealthcareThanksYou

• Giving is not just about making a donation. It is about making a difference. Throughout this holiday season, we’d like to say a big “Thank You” from all of us at [org name]. Your gifts have made a big impact in this time of uncertainty, and we could not have made it this far without your support. #GiveToHealthcare #HealthcareThanksYou 

And here are a few sample posts you can send to your donors asking them to promote your campaign to their friends and family:

• The #GivingTuesday I’m giving to [org name] because I know my donation will make a difference in our community. With every dollar I give, I’m helping to [insert your reason]. Join me and #GiveToHealthcare today. [insert link to donation page]

• II #GiveToHealthcare because I know my contribution will make a difference with [insert your reason]. Support us over the holidays with a gift at [insert link to donation page].