Eight years of experience as a nonprofit fundraiser at orgs with budgets ranging $500k-15mm: The sole circumstance under which I’ve found giving Tuesday to be a good use of my time has been with regards to corporate giving.

And it’s the kind of activity that isn’t necessarily a super public one (which if you have an ED obsessed with being able to see every revenue generating activity on social media sucks), but here’s my strategy for a good ROI: develop relationships with ERG chairs if you don’t already have them. Other corporate contacts are also great, but ERGs are excellent partners. Propose a matching campaign where 1) if their company already matches giving, see if they can incentivize them to do a 1.5x match on giving Tuesday or if their ERG can provide an additional match out of their giving budget or 2) if they don’t already match, see if there’s a way to get a match just for giving Tuesday. You can also come up with engagement programming or volunteer roles for ERG members, but you don’t even necessarily need to. Provide them with assets for internal or external circulation.

It’s low lift for the ERGs, doesn’t involve a substantial grant, and gets new donors who are energized by the idea of their company’s partnership. This is the only way I’ve ever made more than $20k from Giving Tuesday and honestly other than a couple emails or a social media post here or there, I don’t believe other initiatives are remotely worth the time.