Why Children’s Wisconsin built its own giving day

Giving Tuesday is the noisiest inbox day of the year. Children’s Wisconsin wanted to try its own day of giving.

Their team had been planning a standalone giving day with Doing Good Digital, one timed well before December, and built as a digital-first campaign they could learn from. 

At Engaging Networks’ Community Conference in DC last year, they shared that their first-ever Day of Giving raised $55,000, exceeding their $40,000 goal by 37%.

A campaign designed to teach
The Day of Giving paired four patient stories with a $40,000 match. 

The team also built in a stuffed-animal incentive: donate $15 or more, and Children’s Wisconsin would give a stuffed animal to a child receiving inpatient care.

At $148, the average gift landed nearly ten times the incentive threshold, a sign the mission resonated with donors well beyond the minimum.

Each story was sent as a separate email throughout the day, and the team tracked which ones drove the most engagement and gifts. 

One story outperformed so clearly that it became the anchor of their entire year-end appeal.

Small tactics, real signals
The team also used the day to pilot tactics they hadn’t tried before. 

A live donation thermometer and countdown timers drove urgency throughout the day.

A direct mail postcard sent to lapsed and older donors generated 25 gifts, providing multichannel attribution data for a digital-first campaign.

An abandoned cart follow-up email was sent the next day to 530 people who clicked but didn’t give, pulling a 44% click-through rate and recapturing a $5,000 gift. 

That result convinced the team to add abandoned cart emails to every appeal going forward.

How to build your own giving day
Pick a date with breathing room for a giving day. You want to distance the campaign from Giving Tuesday and year-end so it has its own identity.

Treat it as a testing calendar. Run multiple stories and creative formats, then track which ones perform. Walk into Q4 with data, not assumptions.

Set up an abandoned cart email for the day after. The donors who didn’t complete their gift are the warmest leads you have. 

UNICEF USA recovered more than 26,000 gifts through donation recovery prompts.

Bring the winners forward. Your top-performing story from the giving day is the first draft of your year-end anchor.

The bottom line
$55,000 is an impressive first outing for a standalone giving day. 

But the real kicker is that Children’s Wisconsin walked into December with tested stories and tactics to drive year-end success.

If you’re guessing at what will work in Q4, consider a well-planned dress rehearsal earlier in the year.

Check our events list for more or reply to this email to submit one for consideration.

‘Til next time!
Sara