Your Giving Tuesday Calendar: What to Do Every Week Until December 1

Giving Tuesday is 40 days away, and the calendar has a shape. Thanksgiving falls on Thursday, November 26, and Giving Tuesday follows 5 days later on December 1. Everything you plan has to fit around that holiday week.

The timeline below works backward from December 1. Use it as a starting point and adjust the dates to match your team's capacity.

Giving Tuesday Campaign Timeline: Week by Week

1. Week of October 26. Lock the goal, the one big ask, and the owner for every task.
2. Week of November 2. Write the core message and build the donation page. Test the page on a phone and on a laptop.
3. Week of November 9. Draft every email, social post, text, and announcement. Record any video you plan to use.
4. Week of November 16. Tell your audience the date and the ask. This is the preview that primes them for December 1.
5. Week of November 23. Send a Thanksgiving thank-you, finish the final test of your donation page, and schedule the launch-day messages.
6. Tuesday, December 1. Launch in the morning, share progress at midday, and send a closing push in the evening.
7. December 2 to December 4. Thank every supporter by name where you can, and share the final result.

Give Every Task an Owner and a Date

A timeline with no names is a wish list. Next to each task, write one person and one deadline. If 2 people share a task, split it into 2 tasks.

Roles on a Giving Tuesday team usually fall into a few categories: someone who writes, someone who builds and schedules, someone who approves, and someone who monitors the day itself. In a small team, one person fills several roles. Writing the roles down makes the overload visible before it becomes a problem.

Map Your Touchpoints Before You Write Them

A touchpoint is any moment your audience sees or hears from you. Email, text, social posts, your website, and in-person announcements all count. List them on the calendar first, with the date and the channel. Then write the content to fit each slot.

This order keeps you from writing 20 messages and discovering that 12 of them arrive in the same 2 days.

After December 1 Is Part of the Plan

Report back within a couple of weeks. Tell your supporters what the campaign raised and what their gifts make possible. A result report gives you a natural reason to write to supporters again.

Next Step

Module 2 of the Giving Tuesday Campaign Blueprint walks through the timeline, the touchpoints, and the roles and deadlines. We are releasing a suite of workshops because we believe more nonprofits' missions should be funded, and a team with a calendar can give a good cause its best shot on December 1.

Build your Giving Tuesday calendar inside the Campaign Blueprint course. Tomorrow I close the series with the message that ties it together.