Inspiring giving is about appealing to hearts and minds. The most seasoned communicators struggle to create an emotive campaign to their donors for EOFY.

Our Head of Marketing Communications, Lyndal Stuart, is struggling to get a compelling “hearts and minds” campaign together for End of Financial Year. So she thought she’d write about struggling to inspire people to give before EOFY. Here it is.

I really loathe doing my tax. I always have. I find it so excruciatingly dull and I do try to tell myself that this is the system that funds the infrastructure of our society. I know that, at its core, our taxation keeps us all economically responsible to each other for the collective good. So I try to get myself philosophically hyped for the occasion, but it just doesn’t stick. Fortunately there’s this really nice guy called Greg who did study accountancy (I didn’t) and I take my pile of stuff to him and he deals with it for me.

Who cares about EOFY?

There are people who do get excited about EOFY. I would say the top four probably are:

1. Accountants/finance managers
2. Sales managers
3. Retail people
4. Keen shoppers

For Group 1, firstly the rest of us say “thank you” for being good at what you do, so that we don’t have to think about it. I’m speaking for myself here, but I suspect there will be a group of empathetic supporters for the sentiment. For small businesses and start-ups, here’s a good checklist and Xero has a great checklist too.

For Group 2 – go get ‘em! Prospects may have some leftover cash they need to offload before the year closes. Retail people in Group 3 – you are killing my bank balance. Who can so “no” to sale? I can’t. And I don’t. And I should.

For Group 4, you’re possibly going to be the target of some serious Facebook advertising and Buzzfeed content on ‘why you should buy the following 10 things before 30 June’, and you’ll click – you know you will. That, or you’re off to Officeworks and the Apple store to stock up because marketers (like me) said you should, and I can’t blame them, they’re trying to do a job and so am I.

But if you’re not going to have time to hit the shops to browse, or you have social media advertising blindness, don’t watch any television that isn’t streamed through Stan or Netflix, and you don’t read newspapers any more – here’s your cheat’s guide. Bargain hunting? Go here.

Inspiring giving and EOFY

I’m trying to tell people to give to worthy causes – and that’s a compelling motivator. I don’t have a problem with that. But you couple that with a milestone like EOFY and there are challenges.

Corporate Responsibility Managers will understand this. Your role requires you to capture the imagination of your organisation to support social, environmental, community and economic issues – to rally around them, engage with them, understand them, develop responsible business practices and products and services that make the world a better place. And you aim to inspire giving and generosity.

Your themes centre around people, a deep desire to protect our beautiful planet and to create a fairer, more just and happy society. The team at Good2Give are with you all the way.

So telling you to promote those goals – which take people’s minds to a higher plane – and then bringing them down to the most pragmatic levels with End of Financial Year is not easy. I’m struggling. But here it goes.

Five calls to action to get people a bit excited about workplace giving before EOFY, and we hope they help.

1. “It’s not too late to make a difference before you lodge your tax return”
2. “One month and counting – have you supported your charity of choice yet this Financial Year? They’re waiting for your donation.”
3. “Give a bit. Save a bit. Make a huge difference before EOFY.”
4. “Hand a receipt to your accountant with pride. Donate to an Australian charity today.”
5. “You can make a difference to tomorrow today. And you can make a difference to your tax return if you donate through workplace giving before EOFY.”

The thing is, it does actually matter and there’s a very good reason to give before EOFY. Give enough, and it could tip your tax bracket. And if it’s the one windfall for a worthy cause, then it could make all the difference to a program aiming to create a better Australia.

If you want to know how much you’ll save with workplace giving, use the Good2Give Workplace Giving Tax Calculator then donate to one of 1,800 registered charities before your payroll closes this side of 30 June 2017.

We’ve also prepared some EOFY campaign resources for your community or corporate responsibility team to generate giving in your organisation, and some ‘how to’ guides for charities and companies.

It’s not the most inspiring call to action, but what happens when you do give – that is.