You’ve probably at least heard of giving days that are taking the fundraising community by storm. Here’s how it works—many times, a foundation will pledge a certain amount of funds to match contributions on a specific day. Multiple charities can participate, and the whole community benefits. Tons of people rally around one community on one day to give funds and give back.

While giving days are an awesome idea, your community might not have an established day. Here’s how you can start one, plus other ideas to have impact without a giving day.

Start A Give-Back Day
Even if you can’t match funds, having a specific day to rally together helps raise awareness about giving back to the community. Sure, if there are no matching funds it doesn’t matter what day of the year people give. However, having a specific day to give will get the social chatter happening and people will hear about giving to organizations that they might not have heard about before. Awareness is a beautiful thing.

Give More than Money
If your community already has a give-back day for funds, consider adding an element of volunteerism to it. You could either host the volunteerism on the same day as the give-back day, or you could choose a separate day solely for volunteerism. This will also help provide an option for people who would like to contribute, but can’t necessarily contribute cash. Plus, organizations can use much more than just funds.

Narrow Down the Cause
Normally, give-back days are meant to focus on an entire community. While that isn’t a bad idea, you could also narrow it down even more to find donors who are most passionate about your cause.

Reach out to other organizations in your community who have the same cause, or even organizations in other communities that have the same cause. Then you can pull together. More organizations = more brain power = more success. Don’t be afraid to branch outside of your comfort zone.

If all else fails, simply promote your next local giving day to your friends. You never know who is listening out there—even one person could change a life.