# GivingTuesday Emails: Three Sends, One Ask Each

On GivingTuesday 2025, dollars rose 13% while the number of givers rose 3%. Here are three day-of emails, each with one ask, written out with sample copy.

## Key takeaways
- On GivingTuesday 2025, U.S. donations rose 13% to $4.0 billion while the number of people who gave rose only 3% to 19.1 million, according to GivingTuesday's own estimate.
- The median fundraising email drew a 0.05% response rate in 2025, about one gift per 2,000 emails, across the 180 nonprofits in M+R Benchmarks 2026, so each GivingTuesday email has to make one ask with one reason.
- A three-send day works as a morning launch that makes the ask, a midday update that reports a real count of donors so far, and an evening deadline that names the hours left.
- Nonprofits raised $2.40 in email revenue per subscriber in 2025, up from $1.87 the year before, while sending an average of 50 emails per subscriber, 31 of them appeals (M+R Benchmarks 2026).
- Three sends on one day make up about a tenth of the 31 appeals the average nonprofit sent each subscriber in 2025 (M+R Benchmarks 2026), so suppress the day's donors from later sends and thank them the same day.

A GivingTuesday email sequence needs three sends, and each one should ask for exactly one thing. The reason is the way the day has grown. On GivingTuesday 2025, U.S. donations rose 13% to $4.0 billion, while the number of people who made a financial gift rose only 3%, to 19.1 million, according to [GivingTuesday's 2025 results](https://www.givingtuesday.org/blog/2025-results/). Dollars grew about four times faster than the number of givers, which implies larger gifts on average (our arithmetic, not a GivingTuesday finding). Each person who does give matters, and a message that asks for one gift, for one reason, is the easiest one to answer. GivingTuesday 2026 falls on Tuesday, [December 1](https://www.givingtuesday.org/), the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.

## Why should each GivingTuesday email carry only one ask?

Fundraising email converts at a very low rate, so every line of a message has to point at the same action. In [M+R Benchmarks 2026](https://mrbenchmarks.com/email-messaging/), which draws on data from [180 participating nonprofits](https://mrbenchmarks.com/), the median fundraising email in 2025 had a click-through rate of 0.59% and a response rate of 0.05%. Click-through rate is the share of recipients who clicked a link. Response rate is the share who made a gift. A 0.05% response rate means about one gift for every 2,000 emails delivered. M+R puts it concretely: a nonprofit sending a fundraising email to 100,000 recipients saw about 50 donations and about $5,400 in revenue on average. If an email also asks the reader to share a post, watch a video, and follow the organization on social media, those requests compete for a click that only a small fraction of readers will ever make.

**0.05%** — median response rate of nonprofit fundraising emails in 2025, about one gift per 2,000 emails, across 180 participating nonprofits ([M+R Benchmarks 2026, email messaging](https://mrbenchmarks.com/email-messaging/))

These are year-round medians. M+R does not publish a separate GivingTuesday response rate, and response on the day itself may run higher than on an ordinary Tuesday, though no verified benchmark says by how much, so read 0.05% as a baseline rather than a forecast. The one-ask rule is practitioner guidance, not a tested finding: no controlled study we could verify compares one-ask and several-ask GivingTuesday emails. What the data does show is that only a small fraction of readers click at all, which is the case for pointing every line of each send at one request.

## What are the three GivingTuesday emails, and what does each say?

The three sends share one goal and one story, written weeks earlier if you followed our [GivingTuesday prep calendar](https://donorinsights.com/articles/givingtuesday-prep-calendar). What changes from send to send is the reason to give now. The sample copy below is written for Harbor Street Tutoring, a fictional after-school program, and every bracketed field is yours to fill with real facts.

### Send 1, around 8 a.m.: the launch

The launch email states the goal, tells the one story, and asks for the gift. Its reason to give now is that the day has begun.

- Subject line: Today, [number] students need a tutor by January
- Body: Today is GivingTuesday. Harbor Street Tutoring has set a goal of [number] gifts by midnight, enough to match every student on our waiting list with a tutor by January. [Two sentences about one student, shared with permission.] A gift of [amount] covers [one concrete unit, such as a month of weekly sessions].
- Button: Give today

### Send 2, around 1 p.m.: the real count

The midday email reports how many people have given so far, using the true number at the moment it is sent. Its reason to give now is that others already have. Report the count of donors, not only dollars, because a count of people shows the reader that others like them are taking part. Our guide to [social proof in ask amounts](https://donorinsights.com/articles/social-proof-ask-amounts) covers why information about what other donors do shapes giving. If the count is small, report it anyway and frame it against the goal. Never round up, estimate, or pre-write the number.

- Subject line: [Actual number] neighbors have given so far today
- Body: Since this morning, [actual number] people have given to Harbor Street Tutoring. That is [actual number] of our [goal] gifts, and [number of students] students closer to a tutor. If you meant to give today, this is the moment.
- Button: Add your gift

### Send 3, around 7 p.m.: the deadline

The evening email names the hours left and the gap to the goal. Its reason to give now is that the day is ending. Keep it the shortest of the three, because a reader opening it at night decides quickly.

- Subject line: [Number] hours left to reach [goal] gifts
- Body: GivingTuesday ends at midnight. We are [number] gifts from our goal of [goal]. Your gift tonight puts a student with a tutor in January.
- Button: Give before midnight

The three GivingTuesday sends and the job of each (practitioner guidance, sample copy for a fictional organization)

| Send | Time | Reason to give now | One ask |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Launch | About 8 a.m. | The day has begun | Give today |
| Real count | About 1 p.m. | Others have given, with the true number | Add your gift |
| Deadline | About 7 p.m. | Hours left and the gap to the goal | Give before midnight |

## What are three GivingTuesday sends worth, and what do they cost?

Email revenue grew in 2025. Nonprofits in the M+R study raised $2.40 in email-sourced revenue per subscriber over the year, up from $1.87 the year before, and $54 for every 1,000 fundraising emails sent, up 4%. Email accounted for 11% of online revenue. Donors also name email as the channel they prefer: in Bloomerang's 2026 Giving Signals survey of more than 1,000 active U.S. donors, conducted with The Harris Poll, 69% said they prefer email, according to [Bloomerang's release](https://bloomerang.com/news/bloomerang-releases-2026-giving-signals-report). November is also the strongest month for online growth: the [Blackbaud Institute's 2025 Trends in Giving](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-blackbaud-institute-data-shows-resilience-in-2025-charitable-giving-highlights-areas-of-opportunities-for-nonprofits-in-2026-302716900.html), based on more than 7,500 organizations, found online giving grew about 11% in 2025, with growth peaking near 15% in November.

**$2.40** — in email-sourced revenue per subscriber in 2025, up from $1.87 the year before, across 180 participating nonprofits ([M+R Benchmarks 2026, email messaging](https://mrbenchmarks.com/email-messaging/))

The same study shows the cost side. Nonprofits sent an average of 50 emails per subscriber in 2025, 31 of them fundraising appeals, and email volume rose 15% from the year before. Over the year, 12% of subscribers were lost to unsubscribes and another 4% became unreachable because their messages bounced. Three appeals on one day are about a tenth of the 31 appeals the average nonprofit sent each subscriber all year, so the day should earn them. The arithmetic below shows the scale for a small list, using the year-round medians. The revenue line uses M+R's $54 per 1,000 fundraising emails, which already folds in the average gift, so no separate gift size is assumed.

Illustrative: Harbor Street Tutoring (fictional), 8,000 subscribers, three sends, at M+R's 2025 year-round medians

| Measure | Calculation | Result |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Fundraising emails sent | 8,000 subscribers x 3 sends | 24,000 |
| Revenue at $54 per 1,000 | 24 x $54 | about $1,300 |
| Gifts at a 0.05% response rate | 24,000 x 0.05% | about 12 |

About $1,300 and a dozen gifts is what the year-round median predicts, and the day itself may do better. The more useful reading is that the day's donors may give again later. What a GivingTuesday donor is worth depends on whether they give again, which our guide to [GivingTuesday economics](https://donorinsights.com/articles/giving-tuesday-economics) works through. Monthly donors are worth more over a year than one-time donors: in GivingTuesday Data Commons research on Fundraising Effectiveness Project transaction data from 2021 to 2025, donors on monthly schedules had a median annual value of $275, against $100 for donors who were not on a recurring schedule, yet the median organization had only about 4% of donors on recurring schedules in 2025, according to [GivingTuesday's recurring giving research](https://www.givingtuesday.org/blog/recurring-giving/). That makes an invitation to monthly giving, placed in the same-day thank-you email, a reasonable next step for the day's donors.

## How do you run the three sends without wearing out the list?

Five rules keep three sends in one day from costing more than they raise:

1. Suppress donors as they give. Remove anyone who gave after the launch from the midday and evening sends, so a donor never gets asked again the same day.
2. Send the thank-you the same day. A donor who gives at 8 a.m. should hear thanks before the 1 p.m. send goes to everyone else.
3. Pull the real count right before the midday send, from your giving platform, and write it in by hand. A count that is wrong, even by rounding, is a claim you cannot take back.
4. Give recent unsubscribes and inactive addresses a rest. Our guide to [email list health](https://donorinsights.com/articles/email-list-health) explains why we recommend resting readers who have not opened in months.
5. Tag every gift with the send it came from, so next year's plan is built on your own results instead of the sector medians.

The fifth rule is the one that pays off next November. Donor Insights reads your own contacts and gifts, so the donors who gave on December 1 become a cohort you can follow into 2027, to see who gave again and which send brought them in. The [methodology](https://donorinsights.com/methodology) starts from your own giving records, and the [platform](https://donorinsights.com/platform) shows whether this year's GivingTuesday donors are still giving when the next one comes around.

## FAQ

**How many emails should we send on GivingTuesday?**

Three is a common plan: a morning launch, a midday update, and an evening deadline. That is practitioner guidance rather than a tested number. Nonprofits sent an average of 31 appeals per subscriber in 2025 (M+R Benchmarks 2026), so three in one day is a real share of the year and should come with same-day suppression of people who already gave.

**What time should GivingTuesday emails go out?**

Around 8 a.m. for the launch, 1 p.m. for the midday count, and 7 p.m. for the deadline, adjusted to your audience's time zone. No verified study sets the best hour, so check when your own list opened last year and move the times to match.

**What should the midday GivingTuesday email say?**

Report the true number of people who have given so far and how far that is from the goal, then make one ask. Count donors rather than dollars, and never round up or pre-write the figure.

**What response rate should we expect from GivingTuesday emails?**

The only verified benchmark is year-round: fundraising emails drew a 0.05% median response rate and a 0.59% click-through rate in 2025 (M+R Benchmarks 2026). Response on GivingTuesday itself may run higher, but no verified benchmark says by how much, so treat those medians as a baseline.

**Should donors who already gave receive the later emails?**

No. Remove anyone who gave from the day's later sends and thank them the same day. In our experience, asking a donor again hours after they gave can tell them the organization did not notice their gift.

## Sources
- [GivingTuesday (2025). GivingTuesday 2025 results. GivingTuesday Data Commons estimate from 50+ data partners, December 3, 2025 (2025 data)](https://www.givingtuesday.org/blog/2025-results/)
- [M+R (2026). M+R Benchmarks 2026, email messaging chapter (2025 data, 180 participating nonprofits)](https://mrbenchmarks.com/email-messaging/)
- [M+R (2026). M+R Benchmarks 2026, introduction and methodology (180 participating nonprofits)](https://mrbenchmarks.com/)
- [Bloomerang with The Harris Poll (2026). 2026 Giving Signals Report. Survey of 1,000+ active US donors, March 13-24, 2026](https://bloomerang.com/news/bloomerang-releases-2026-giving-signals-report)
- [GivingTuesday Data Commons (2026). Recurring Giving Is Growing. May 2026 (Fundraising Effectiveness Project transaction data, 2021-2025)](https://www.givingtuesday.org/blog/recurring-giving/)
- [GivingTuesday. GivingTuesday 2026 date (December 1, 2026)](https://www.givingtuesday.org/)
- [Blackbaud Institute (2026). 2025 Trends in Giving data spotlight. Press release, March 18, 2026 (2025 data, 7,500+ organizations)](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-blackbaud-institute-data-shows-resilience-in-2025-charitable-giving-highlights-areas-of-opportunities-for-nonprofits-in-2026-302716900.html)

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