As Giving Tuesday approaches, your nonprofit’s crack team of unicorns is likely putting together your Giving Tuesday strategy. You’ll want to take advantage of this once-a-year event and fundraise to the best of your ability, because your nonprofit needs resources if it’s going to accomplish its mission.

But what to do if you’re looking at attacking Giving Tuesday with limited staff availability, not enough time, and only so large of a fundraising budget?

If you’re facing any limitation on resources, you might want to consider going all-in on one marketing channel instead of pushing your Giving Tuesday fundraiser over a number of channels. This allows you to put all of your resources in one place instead of scattering your efforts across a number of possible channels, which gives your chosen channel a greater chance of providing you the success you and your nonprofit need.

We narrowed it down to email, social media, and local press as the three contenders to get all your Giving Tuesday time and energy. Read on to discover what each channel can do for you, the return on investment you can expect, and what you’ll have to put in in terms of time and effort. Let’s jump in.

Email

Email marketing is one of the best ways for nonprofits to reach a group of people interested in their mission repeatedly, consistently, and thoroughly. With an email list, you can arrive in your supporters’ inboxes on a regular basis, guaranteeing you and your nonprofit much-needed real estate in your supporter’s minds. Email marketing typically offers a 42x return on investment, so you’re likely to do well if you choose this channel.

A lot goes into email fundraising, though! If you choose this as your main Giving Tuesday channel, you’ll have to work with an email copywriter and designer, unless you choose to go DIY. If you already have a robust list of email addresses linked to people you know are interested in your nonprofit, DIY email could work for you.

Both Mailchimp and Constant Contact are well known as robust, yet user-friendly email programs, and lucky you, Funraise integrates with both of them! If you’ve been having a difficult time with email marketing, check out our Integrations—we promise you it’s about to get a lot easier.

Social

Ah, social media. It’s both a blessing and curse to society. When it comes to Giving Tuesday, nonprofits can easily take advantage of social media—how else are you gonna spread the news about your good work and get supporters totally pumped about pitching in?

If social media’s the channel you choose to go all-in on this Giving Tuesday, you’ll want to pick a platform….Facebook? Instagram? Tinder? Probably not Tinder, but you get the idea. You can get your supporters to post on their own pages about your nonprofit’s very own fundraising challenge or you can even spend a few bucks on social media ads. The ROAS of a typical Facebook ad is around 4x, so you’re likely to make your money back and more!

Funraise is totally prepped to help with all of your social efforts, bee-tee-dubs. With a gorgeous and seamless Facebook integration, we’re making it easier for nonprofit teams just like yours to take advantage of the power of social media for the greater good.

Local

Then again, you might want to keep things close and simply advertise locally. Local news stations, small town newspapers, and good ole word-of-mouth are a great way to get the word out about your nonprofits’ Giving Tuesday efforts. If your nonprofit is smaller, community-based, and tied to a certain geographical area, this might be the best option for you.

Unfortunately, we don’t have any statistics about word-of-mouth fundraising’s ROI, but we do have a few suggestions. Send a press release to every newspaper in your area—and if you need a press release written, be sure to check out Funraise’s Giving Tuesday Toolkit, because we’ve got a great one in there ready for you to use. Try to get your director on local television—TV makes stars, and your nonprofit is ready for the limelight! Finally, try to get a matching donor so people know their donation goes twice as far (and if you switch to Funraise soon, we can help you with that. 😉 )

Giving Tuesday always has its challenges. It might be less challenging, however, if you go all-in on just one channel. Don’t divide up your resources unnecessarily—instead, give just one channel your all and see what happens! If you need a little more guidance, check out Funraise’s Giving Tuesday Toolkit—it has all the info you need and all the resources you want. And good luck!