Giving Tuesday, often referred to as #GivingTuesday for purposes of hashtag activism, is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. Started in 2012 as a movement to create an international day of giving at the start of the holiday season, Giving Tuesday has grown exponentially year after year. Integrating naturally with our 13-year-old Thanks & Giving end-of-year campaign, the St. Jude Giving Tuesday campaign focuses attention on gratitude, as a response to commercialism and consumerism of the post-Thanksgiving season (Black Friday and Cyber Monday). Our goal for Giving Tuesday 2016 was to increase donations on that day by 28% YOY.
Leveraging the prevailing spirit of gratitude during the post-Thanksgiving season, our core messaging for Giving Tuesday was: "Give thanks for the healthy kids in your life, and give to those who are not. Your #GivingTuesday gift ensures that no family ever pays St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing or food — because all a family should worry about is helping their child live." The campaign included activation on all St. Jude social channels – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google+. Multiple posts throughout the day used the #GiveThanks and #GivingTuesday hashtags. Corporate partners and several St. Jude celebrity friends were activated as well, posting/tweeting on behalf of St. Jude, and we re-posted/re-tweeted their promotions. The focus of all efforts was driving donations. To further encourage social sharing of the St. Jude hashtag, a landing page was created with an embedded aggregate of social posts using the #GiveThanks hashtag.
The revenue goal (an increase of 28% YOY) was achieved. Additionally, there were 5.3 million impressions (112% increase YOY). Average engagement rate in social media was up dramatically YOY, from 0.67% to 4.08%. Through our strategic partnerships, St. Jude was a featured charity on the AOL.com homepage "Make a Difference" module, a featured charity with PayPal, and a featured charity with Facebook. Throughout the day, the St. Jude #GiveThanks/#GivingTuesday campaign was supported by 10 corporate partners, including: PayPal, Willliams Sonoma, Tumi, GNC, HSN, Brooks Brothers, Domino's, Charlotte Russe, Kmart and NY&Co. Ten celebrity partners, including Ellen DeGeneres, also supported the campaign through social media.
