- What should a nonprofit check on its technology before Giving Tuesday?
- What should you do in the weeks before Giving Tuesday?
- What should happen the week of Giving Tuesday?
- What should you monitor on Giving Tuesday itself?
- What should you check after Giving Tuesday?
- Sources and further reading
- Who offers a Giving Tuesday technology readiness review?
GivingTuesday lands on Tuesday, December 1, 2026, and a Giving Tuesday checklist built only around messaging and goals leaves the donation stack untested. The technology side fails quietly: a form that stalls on a phone, a processor that holds payouts, a receipt that never sends. If you would rather have your technology reviewed more broadly, a nonprofit tech stack audit looks for inefficiencies, security gaps and cost savings across your stack.
Technology assessments at Scottship are overseen by Luiza Vilardo, who holds the PMP, a Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt and the Certified ScrumMaster credential. This guide is Scottship’s dated countdown for the technology side only. It runs through the weeks before, the week of, the day itself and the days after.
Thanksgiving falls on Thursday, November 26, so the working time before the day is shorter than it looks. The table below gives each item an owner and a date.
Not sure your donation stack will hold on December 1? Scottship runs a 10-day tech stack audit that identifies inefficiencies, security gaps and cost savings across your technology, and you can ask for your giving-day stack to be in scope. Tell us which platforms you run and when your campaign starts.
What should a nonprofit check on its technology before Giving Tuesday?
A nonprofit should check eight things: the donation page, card testing controls, payment processor limits, email authentication, receipts, backups with admin access, a change freeze, and PCI scope. This Giving Tuesday readiness checklist, which doubles as a Giving Tuesday IT checklist, puts each one on a calendar with an owner.
Scope matters here. This post covers technology only. For messaging and channels, see our guide to fundraising campaign strategies, and for choosing where to collect gifts, see fundraising platforms for nonprofits.
The phases run on the calendar. Weeks before means now through Friday, November 20. Week of means Monday, November 23 through Monday, November 30. The day is Tuesday, December 1, and after starts December 2.
| Check | What can go wrong | Who owns it | Do it by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Donation page and uptime | Form stalls or fails on phones under load | Web lead or host | Weeks before, by Friday, November 20 |
| Card testing controls | Bots run stolen cards through the form and create fees and disputes | Web lead with the processor | Weeks before, by Friday, November 20 |
| Processor limits and holds | Payments capped or payouts held on the day | Finance lead | Weeks before, by Friday, November 20 |
| Email authentication and deliverability | Appeals land in spam or get blocked | Communications lead | Weeks before, by Friday, November 20 |
| CRM receipts and thank-you automation | Gifts post but no receipt sends | Database owner | Weeks before, by Friday, November 20 |
| Backups and admin access | No restore path, locked-out admins, stale accounts | IT lead or consultant | Week of, by Monday, November 23 |
| Change freeze | A late edit breaks a tested form | Executive sponsor | Starts Friday, November 20, lifts December 2 |
| PCI pointer | Payment data handled outside your processor’s hosted form | IT lead | Weeks before, by Friday, November 20 |
What should you do in the weeks before Giving Tuesday?
The weeks before the day are the only window where fixes are safe. Everything in this section should be finished by Friday, November 20, so that the freeze can start with a stack you have already tested.
How do I test my donation page before Giving Tuesday?
Use this as your Giving Tuesday donation page checklist. Make a real test donation on a phone and on a desktop, in more than one browser. Test the full path, from the link in your email through the form to the confirmation page.
Then ask whoever hosts the page about page weight, caching and a content delivery network. Ask your donation platform or host for its uptime commitments and traffic limits in writing. The same questions apply whether you collect gifts through Donorbox, Classy, Givebutter, Blackbaud, Neon One or a WordPress form.
How do I stop card testing fraud on my nonprofit donation page?
Card testing, sometimes called a carding attack or a donation form bot attack, is when attackers run many small stolen card charges through a public form to learn which numbers work. A giving day can raise your exposure: a busy, visible form makes an attack harder to spot. Each attempt can carry processing fees and disputes, even when no real donor gave anything.
The warning sign is a burst of small donations in a short window. Layer the controls that processors and donation platforms commonly recommend: a bot challenge on the form, address and security code checks, rate and velocity limits, minimum gift amounts, and retiring old forms nobody uses. No single control prevents card testing, and each adds friction that can cost you a real donor, so tune them with your processor rather than switching everything on.
A team that has no one watching these signals can add managed IT services for nonprofits to cover monitoring around the day.
Who pays the fees when a nonprofit gets hit by a card testing attack?
Check your processor agreement for who bears processing fees, chargebacks and dispute costs when fraudulent charges run through your form. Then ask the processor in writing before the day. Save the reply with your giving day documents.
Will my payment processor limit or hold donations on Giving Tuesday?
Many processors can apply limits such as volume caps, per-transaction caps, payout holds, reserves and dispute thresholds. A sudden spike in volume from a nonprofit that normally processes little can trigger them. Ask your processor, in writing, which limits apply to your account and what volume you should expect to clear on December 1. Take figures only from the processor’s own current documentation, never from a blog.
How do I make sure Giving Tuesday emails reach the inbox?
Email deliverability starts with authentication. Set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC for the domain you send from, and confirm your email platform handles unsubscribes and complaints. Then send a seed test to Gmail and Yahoo addresses you control before the real send.
The sender requirements are public, and we checked both pages in October 2026. Google’s sender guidelines ask all senders to set up SPF or DKIM, and to keep spam rates reported in Postmaster Tools below 0.3%. Google defines a bulk sender as one sending more than 5,000 messages a day to Gmail accounts, and bulk senders must also set up SPF and DKIM together, set up DMARC, and support one-click unsubscribe.
Yahoo’s sender best practices ask for SPF or DKIM at a minimum. Its bulk sender requirements go further: both SPF and DKIM, a valid DMARC policy that passes, a list-unsubscribe header with one-click unsubscribe, unsubscribes honored within 2 days, and a spam rate below 0.3%. Yahoo publishes no volume threshold for bulk senders. Recheck both pages before you send.
If a sudden jump in volume is coming, warm it up: send to your most engaged subscribers first. Our Mailchimp for nonprofits post covers one email platform.
Do donation receipts send automatically from my CRM?
Run an end-to-end test rather than trusting the settings screen. Make a donation, confirm the record lands in your CRM, then confirm the receipt and the thank-you automation both send. Read the tax-receipt wording while you are there, and check that the sync between the donation platform and the CRM runs without a manual step. The test works the same for any CRM.
Where does PCI fit?
PCI rules cover how card data is handled, and a hosted payment form from your processor typically keeps most of that burden off your systems. Confirm your form is the processor’s hosted version and not a custom one that touches card numbers. Our guide to PCI and donor data requirements covers the rest.
What should happen the week of Giving Tuesday?
The week of Giving Tuesday, Monday, November 23 through Monday, November 30, is for holding steady. Nothing new gets built. Your team confirms that what you tested is the same thing donors will use.
When should a nonprofit freeze website and software changes before Giving Tuesday?
As a Scottship recommendation, start the change freeze, also called a code freeze, on Friday, November 20. Hold it through December 2, and make one final test donation after the last change. Security patches are the only exception, and they get tested the same day.
What backups and admin access should a nonprofit have before a big giving day?
Take a fresh backup of the website and the donation form configuration, and prove you can restore it. Name your admins, require multi-factor authentication on each account, and remove stale accounts from former staff and old vendors.
Write down who holds the logins for the processor, the email platform, the CRM and your DNS. Then build a one-page who-to-call sheet with each vendor’s support route. When something breaks at 9 a.m. on December 1, everyone already knows who to call.
How do you plan a rollback for the donation page?
Decide in advance how to pause the form, how to swap in a backup donate link, and who is allowed to make the call. Keep the backup link, such as a hosted page from your processor, tested and ready. One named person decides, and the rest of the team knows who that is.
What should you monitor on Giving Tuesday itself?
On Tuesday, December 1, your team watches five things in one place: the donation page, the processor dashboard, email sending and complaint signals, receipts, and fraud patterns. Give each a named owner and a set check-in time.
Write the fraud response before you need it. Decide when to add friction, such as turning on a stricter bot challenge. Decide when to pause the form, and who calls the processor. A burst of small donations in a short window is the cue to act, not to wait and see.
What should you check after Giving Tuesday?
From December 2 onward, reconcile your processor records against the CRM and confirm every receipt went out. Review declines, chargebacks and fraud flags, then lift the freeze deliberately rather than by accident. Document what broke, who fixed it and how long it took.
The same checks work as a year-end giving tech checklist for the rest of the appeal season. We plan to update this post before next year’s Giving Tuesday, so bookmark it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a Giving Tuesday tech readiness review cost?
The Giving Tuesday tech checklist on this page is free and ungated. Scottship does not publish a price for the 10-day Tech Stack Audit in this post. Ask our team for the current scope and fee.
Who pays the fees when a nonprofit gets hit by a card testing attack?
Check your payment processor agreement for who bears processing fees, chargebacks and dispute costs. Ask your processor in writing before the day and keep the answer on file.
Will my payment processor limit or hold donations on Giving Tuesday?
Possibly. Many processors can apply limits such as volume caps, per-transaction caps, payout holds, reserves and dispute thresholds, and a sudden spike can trigger them. Ask for your account’s limits in writing before December 1.
When should a nonprofit freeze website and software changes before Giving Tuesday?
Our recommendation is Friday, November 20, holding through December 2, with one final test donation after the last change. That gives the team the week of Thanksgiving with nothing new to break.
Sources and further reading
- Google, Email sender guidelines: SPF or DKIM for all senders, bulk senders defined as more than 5,000 messages a day to Gmail accounts, DMARC and one-click unsubscribe for bulk senders, spam rates below 0.3%, checked October 2026
- Yahoo, Sender best practices: bulk sender requirements of SPF and DKIM, DMARC, one-click unsubscribe, unsubscribes honored within 2 days, spam rate below 0.3%, checked October 2026
Who offers a Giving Tuesday technology readiness review?
Most Giving Tuesday checklists come from fundraising platforms and cover goals and outreach with one technology item. A broader review can look across the donation page, processor, email, CRM and access together.
Scottship Solutions offers a 10-day Tech Stack Audit for nonprofits that identifies inefficiencies, security gaps and cost savings across your technology, and you can ask for the giving-day stack to be in scope. No form is required to read this guide. For what that review examines, see what a nonprofit tech stack audit covers.
Tech audit for nonprofits from Scottship looks for inefficiencies, security gaps and cost savings across your technology. Send us your donation platform, processor and email tool.
Written by
Luiza Vilardo
Director of Consulting at Scottship Solutions
Luiza oversees technology assessments, strategic roadmap execution, and project delivery for nonprofit and small business clients. She translates CIO-level strategy into operational reality through structured delivery and measurable outcomes.
Certifications
PMP (Project Management Professional) • Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt • Certified ScrumMaster (CSM)
Industries Served
Human Services, Healthcare & Community Health, Arts & Culture, Foundations & Grantmakers, Education & Youth Development