Giving Tuesday is less than 60 days away. Here's what you can do today.

There is a particular moment every fall when Giving Tuesday suddenly stops feeling like something that's “coming up” and starts feeling like something that's very much happening soon.

If you're reading this in early October and your Giving Tuesday campaign is still mostly an idea floating around in the back of your mind, you're probably not alone. Nonprofit teams are balancing programs, events, budgets, board meetings, year-end fundraising, and approximately 47 other things that somehow all became urgent at the same time. It is incredibly easy for Giving Tuesday to sit on the to-do list while you tell yourself you'll get to it once things calm down.

The good news is that you don't need a perfectly mapped-out campaign today. You don't need every email written, every social post scheduled, or your year-end fundraising strategy completely finished.

You just need to start.

With less than 60 days until Giving Tuesday, there are three things I would focus on right now. None of them require a giant budget or a complicated fundraising platform. They require a little clarity, a little intentionality, and a willingness to put something on paper.

First, decide what you're actually asking people to make possible.

Before you open Canva, start drafting social media posts, or spend an afternoon trying to come up with the perfect Giving Tuesday graphic, spend some time answering a much more important question: What will someone's gift actually make possible?

This is where a lot of campaigns lose their momentum. We start with the fundraising goal because, of course, the organization needs the money. Maybe the goal is $5,000, $10,000, or $25,000. Maybe you're trying to fund a particular program or purchase something your organization desperately needs. Those are important details, but the dollar amount alone isn't what makes someone want to give.

People give because they care about what happens next.

If your goal is $10,000, what happens when you reach it? Does it allow you to serve 50 additional families? Keep an important program running through the winter? Purchase equipment that your clients have been waiting for? Provide scholarships? Expand an existing program into another part of your community? That is the story.

Your Giving Tuesday campaign becomes much easier to build when you can clearly articulate the connection between the gift and the impact. Instead of simply asking someone to help you reach a number, you're inviting them to help accomplish something.

Try finishing this sentence:

“This Giving Tuesday, we're inviting our community to help us ________, so that ________.”

You don't need beautiful copy yet. You don't even need to know exactly how you'll say it publicly. Just figure out what you're trying to make happen. That one sentence can become the foundation for everything else you build.

Next, look at the people who already have a reason to care.

Once you know what you're asking people to support, it's time to think about who you're going to invite into the campaign.

And this is where I want to save you some time: you probably don't need to start with strangers. Before you worry about whether the Facebook algorithm is going to cooperate or wonder how you're going to reach thousands of people, take a look at the people who already have some kind of relationship with your organization. Your current and past donors are an obvious place to start, but don't stop there. Think about volunteers, board members, program participants and their families, former volunteers, business partners, sponsors, event attendees, alumni, community partners, and the people who consistently show up for your organization in ways that don't necessarily involve writing a check.

Not everyone on that list will become a donor, and that's okay. Some people may make a gift. Others may share your campaign with their networks. Someone might introduce you to a business that wants to provide a matching gift. A former volunteer might reconnect with your organization after seeing a story that reminds them why they got involved in the first place.

Fundraising is about more than finding people who have money to give. It's about identifying the people who have a connection to your mission and giving them meaningful ways to participate.

If your organization hasn't started building its Giving Tuesday list yet, don't make this more complicated than it needs to be. Pull together 25 names. Look through your donor records, your volunteer list, your contacts, your event attendees, and the people you know are already invested in your work.

Twenty-five is enough to get started. From there, you can keep building.

Finally, start telling the story before you start asking for the gift.

This may be the most important piece of the puzzle.

Your supporters shouldn't have to wake up on Giving Tuesday and suddenly discover that your organization needs money. If the first time they hear about your campaign is a social media post with a donation link and the words “Today is Giving Tuesday!”, you've missed several weeks of opportunity to help them understand why they should care.

That doesn't mean you need to spend the next seven weeks asking people for money. Quite the opposite.

Use this time to tell the stories that remind people why your organization matters. Show them the people behind your mission. Share a success story, introduce a volunteer, highlight a program, talk about something your team has accomplished, or give your audience a glimpse into the work that happens behind the scenes. If you have a story about a challenge your organization is working to solve, talk about that too.

The goal is to help people see the connection between your mission and the community you're serving.

Then, as Giving Tuesday gets closer, you can begin connecting those stories to the opportunity to give.

You might spend one week talking about the problem you're addressing, another highlighting the people doing the work, and another showing what your organization has accomplished with community support. By the time you make the actual fundraising ask, your audience has had an opportunity to understand the bigger picture.

They're not just being asked to donate to an organization. They're being invited to be part of something. And that's a much more compelling invitation.

So, what if you really haven't started yet?

Start today. Not with a 12-page campaign plan. Not with a three-hour meeting where everyone tries to come up with the perfect slogan. And definitely not by convincing yourself that you've already missed your window.

Start by answering three questions:

1) What are we trying to make possible?

2) Who already cares about this work?

3) What stories can we tell between now and Giving Tuesday that will help people understand why it matters?

Those answers will give you somewhere to go.

You can build the email campaign after that. You can plan your social media content. You can recruit board members and volunteers to help spread the word. You can work on your donation page, create your graphics, develop your matching-gift strategy, and decide what you'll send on Giving Tuesday itself.

But you don't have to solve all of those things today.

Giving Tuesday is less than 60 days away, but that's still enough time to create something thoughtful. In fact, starting now gives you something that a super last-minute campaign simply can't manufacture: time to build relationships and tell a story before you ask for the gift. It gives people a reason to care, shows them the difference their generosity can make, and makes them feel like they have a meaningful place in the work.

So if Giving Tuesday has been sitting on your to-do list while you quietly hope Future You will deal with it, consider this your gentle nudge from Future You.

It's time to start.

Ready, Set, Raise.

At Katie J. Price Consulting, I believe fundraising works best when it feels less like a transaction and more like an invitation. Your Giving Tuesday campaign doesn't need to be complicated. It needs to be clear, intentional, and rooted in the work your organization is already doing.

If you need help turning your ideas into a practical campaign strategy, I'd love to help you get there.

Simplified fundraising starts here.