GIVE A TWENTY TUESDAY
John Sebby
Senior Pastor at Wildwood Christian Church, Director of Development at MTM Ministries, Author, and Lyricist
Dear Salvation Army friends,
Here is my idea to increase your kettle revenue with GIVE A TWENTY TUESDAY where we encourage donors to drop a twenty-dollar bill in a Red Kettle on Tuesdays (and the rest of the week too).
This will capitalize on the popular #GIVINGTUESDAY trend and also helps change the mindset of putting only coins or a one dollar-bill in the kettle. Not only will this increase kettle donations, but there is no expense, zero, to this. Only a little time to put it on your social media and send out a press release (I have a sample Media Release for GIVE A TWENTY TUESDAY, just message me at Linked-In and I’ll send it to you).
As fewer people carry cash, stores cutting back on bellringing hours, and you’ve read about the ‘retail apocalypse’ we need new and creative ways to increase kettle revenue. The GIVE A TWENTY TUESDAY promotions will remind people to prepare and have cash ready for red kettle.
During the Christmas season when we count the kettles, whenever someone finds a $20 (as well as a $50 or $100 dollar bill) the sorter calls out “got a twenty” to cheers from the crew. I got to thinking what if we had more kettles filled with $20-dollar bills? So, I came up with the GIVE A TWENTY TUESDAY campaign.
The concept is easy and catchy. Andrew Jackson on the twenty- dollar bill saying GIVE A TWENTY TUESDAY is memorable and fun. Later in the week you can send out a media release saying that GIVE A TWENTY TUESDAY also falls on Friday and Saturday. Have signs printed for the Kettles saying GIVE A TWENTY WEDNESDAY (etc.). Would be good to develop a GIVE A TWENTY TUESDAY website to capture online and mobile donations.
Best of all, this could have a significant impact on your revenue as it gives your kettle campaign a boost in donations.
I retire tomorrow Oct. 4th and won’t be here to implement this, so, I offer it up to any Salvation Army that would like to use this. If you do, please send me a note on how it went.
Thanks,
John