In the charitable sector, most fundraisers are laser focused on launching a great GivingTuesday and holiday campaign. We have it circled on our calendars and plan all sorts of promotions around it.

But sometimes, that excitement can feel one-sided and your donors need some extra inspiration to join the fun.

As you're preparing your GivingTuesday campaign for this November 30th, it’s important to craft an effective story that will inspire prospective donors to give. Here are 3 tips to inspire donors this GivingTuesday.

1. Focus on Building Connection

Building a connection with your audience is important. It ensures that you communicate messages that actually resonate with them and feel connected with your charity’s mission and work. Donors don’t just want to receive fundraising appeals from your team; they want to feel connected to the work you do. That’s why storytelling, impact updates, and other ways to engage are critical in building a connection with your donors.

Connection with your audience is tough to build and quite easy to break. For example, if you have a donor that directs their donations to a specific fund within your organization — sending communications, updates, and asks about other funds may rub your donor the wrong way. They could easily feel confused about where their money is going or feel like you don't understand them.

To mitigate this risk, consider targeting your GivingTuesday campaign around how their donation has made a difference, but your charity needs more help to keep going. Based on their past donation history, what are other challenges and gaps your charity is trying to fill? Make this a clear campaign ask, so donors feel connected.

2. How to Write a Compelling GivingTuesday Story

Remember being a child and enamored by a good book? There is no underestimating the power of storytelling. Here are some tips for creating a compelling GivingTuesday story for your audience:

Be Specific

When you're writing your GivingTuesday story, use specific details to help your audience picture it in their minds, engage with the emotions in the story and make an emotional connection. Here are a few questions to ask yourself when crafting your story:

• Who is involved in this situation?
• What are they doing or saying?
• Where are they?
• Why does this matter?
• How did it affect them personally?

Make sure the story you are telling is clear and simple. Use plain language without jargon to help your audience understand. You can also do this with anecdotes.

Anecdotes are often used as evidence or reinforcement towards a point that someone is trying to make in an argument. And they can be the perfect way to make stories relatable.

Describe How Your Cause Affects People's Lives

Use emotional language along with anecdotal evidence whenever possible.

Emotional stories allow the readers themselves to become immersed in their own feelings about what you're writing, which can create lasting change for them — both during and after reading the story.

By creating a connection with your audience and your cause, you will be able to inspire them to become emotionally invested in your GivingTuesday campaign. Your donors are human beings too, and the more you are able to connect with them on an emotional level, the more likely they are to keep donating throughout the year.

Have Numbers to Back Up Your Claims

When writing your story for GivingTuesday, be sure to have statistics to back up your points. The more you can be transparent with your donors about your numbers, the more trust they will have in you.

Providing transparency also allows them to see exactly how their money is being spent and where it's going. And more importantly, it gives them more confidence in participating in your campaign.

For example, if you're writing about how your recent donation changes were life-changing for families, include specific numbers that show just how impactful those donations were.

3. Ask Yourself These Questions When Writing

When you write your story, there are some important things to think about. Here are a few:

• Who is the protagonist (the person, people, or group of people most affected by this issue or who will most benefit from the cause)?
• What issues are affecting them?
• How specifically does my charity impact them?
• What do they need help with?

Give donors an idea of what they can accomplish by donating to your organization. Tell donors how their gift will make a difference in the life of someone else and why that matters.

And remember, you want to end your story on a positive note! Make sure you've got some compelling reasons for why it's important that they don’t wait to give. Show prospective donors that if they donate right now, it'll be extremely helpful and meaningful for everyone involved!

Philip Manzano is a Senior Client Marketing Manager at CanadaHelps, a leader in providing powerful fundraising and donation technology to charities and donors since 2000. Philip has been working closely with charities and small nonprofit teams to adopt nonprofit technology for the last nine years. www.canadahelps.org