Rally Your Community: Inside Catlin Gabel's Giving Tuesday Curb Party, Challenges, and 115% Participation

Catlin Gabel School in Portland, Oregon brought 315 supporters to Giving Tuesday 2025 and finished at 115% of their participation goal. The day started at morning drop-off, where the advancement team stood at the curb in neon outfits with music, coffee, a donut cart, and a table full of buttons matching each area of need on their Boost giving page.

Aidan Krainock, Annual Giving Officer at Catlin Gabel and an alum of the school, shared how the day came together. For her, Giving Tuesday is where years of work building the school's culture of giving really shows, and her approach leans less on polished appeal copy and more on getting people's attention at the right moment.

Key takeaways

1. Give every family a way to participate. The curb party handed out buttons for each funding area, so everyone knew what the day was about, whether or not they made a gift that morning.
2. Spend your energy on timing. Aidan writes most of her emails ahead of time and watches the live participant count all day, sending updates on how close they are to the next challenge.
3. Pair challenges with your texting strategy. The team announced each challenge with a short, playful text that linked straight to the giving page, sent alongside a longer email with the details.
4. Make the Giving Tuesday brand your own. Working the Giving Tuesday heart into Catlin Gabel's own design helped the campaign feel familiar while still being clearly theirs.

Rebuilding a culture of giving

Aidan knows the school from the inside. She's a Catlin Gabel "lifer" who started in first grade, and her family was deeply involved in the school while she was growing up. After about 20 years in fundraising, she came back four years ago to join the annual giving team.

For decades, the Catlin Gabel Rummage Sale was both a fundraiser for financial assistance and a Portland community event, with students working alongside a devoted crew of volunteers. The sale ended about ten years ago, and COVID later disrupted community life, so the school lost one of its strongest everyday connections to giving.

Since then, the advancement team has put real effort into parent engagement. In Aidan's words, "we felt like we needed to deeply get into the community and reteach what a culture of philanthropy is." Giving Tuesday is one of the places where that work shows. "They get Giving Tuesday," she says. "They're happy to show up for Giving Tuesday. They want to leave those comments."

Starting the day with a drop-off party

When families ask Aidan what the CG Fund is, her answer is simple: "Well, it pays for everything." Last year the team wanted a way to show that on Giving Tuesday morning, so they set up along the school's big parking lot curb, dressed in neon to match the campaign theme from Catlin Gabel's designer, Hannah Lee.

On the table were bins of buttons, each one matching a funding area on the giving page, with messages like "I heart the arts," "I heart my teachers," and "I heart athletics." Students and families could take as many as they wanted.

"It was a way to get the community involved that wasn't just giving," Aidan says, "so that everybody knew what was happening that day, even if they weren't going to make a donation."

See Catlin Gabel's Giving Tuesday page and its funding areas →

Keeping momentum with well-timed reminders

Once families left the curb, the campaign moved online. After a few years of running Giving Tuesday, Aidan stopped spending much time on persuasive email copy, because she found that timing mattered far more.

"Everybody knows what Giving Tuesday is. They're planning on giving, they want to participate. So all I have to do is get their attention at the right time."

She watches the giving page throughout the day and sends emails that are mostly written in advance but adjusted to what's happening, like how many more participants they need by a certain hour to hit a challenge. Challenges and matches carry a lot of the day, and here's how Catlin Gabel's unfolded, with a short text and a longer email going out at each step:

• 7 am: The first ask went out by email to 12 audience segments, along with a text that carried the curb party to everyone who wasn't at drop-off.
• 10 am: A $10K participation challenge from a generous supporter, released once the school reached a set number of donors.
• 12 pm: A surprise $100K participation challenge from a community member.
• 3 pm: A 2:1 match up to $25K, which their email described as a way to triple the impact of every gift.
• 8 pm: A last-chance text reminding everyone the 2:1 match was still on.

The texts are short and lighthearted, and each one links straight to the giving page. Aidan also kept a few backup texts ready in case the day needed an extra push, including an afternoon nudge about the match.

"Every time I send an email, every time I send a text, we get a big bump," she says.

To close the day, the team sent a thank-you email that named everyone who showed up, from parents and alumni to parents of alumni, grandparents, faculty, and staff.

Aidan's advice for schools planning Giving Tuesday

Her first piece of advice is to make the branding your own. Catlin Gabel used standard Giving Tuesday branding in the past, but once Hannah worked the Giving Tuesday heart into the school's own design, Aidan noticed their audience responded better, because it felt "both familiar and uniquely Catlin."

Her second is to use every tool you have. "Use the challenges. Use your community wall," she says. "Whatever design elements are available to customize, use them."

Curious which challenges and design options you could customize for your school? See how Boost can help →

Congratulations to Aidan, Hannah, and the whole Catlin Gabel advancement team on a Giving Tuesday that brought their community together. You can see their 2025 Giving Tuesday page here.