These days, it’s common to see people checking their phones while walking down the street, waiting in line, or in the middle of a meal. To maximize your nonprofit’s fundraising results, it’s essential to meet your donors where they are: via mobile communication channels, especially social media platforms.
With 64% of Gen Z individuals using social media several times a day, compared to 47% of people overall, it’s clear that these platforms will remain key to connecting with supporters in the years to come. Social media is both a cost-effective and impactful way to build a tight-knit online community dedicated to furthering your nonprofit’s cause. Therefore, it’s essential to have a well-crafted strategy to guide your efforts.
We’ll discuss four effective ways to optimize your nonprofit’s social media fundraising strategy in this guide:
1. Leverage Social Media Fundraising Tools
2. Empower Your Supporters
3. Communicate Impact
4. Strengthen Relationships with Social Media Supporters
Using the right approach, your nonprofit can inspire immense support and bring together like-minded individuals to propel your fundraising efforts to success. Ready to expand your supporter base and meet your fundraising goals? Let’s begin!
1. Leverage Social Media Fundraising Tools
Many social media platforms offer fundraising tools that facilitate the process of engaging supporters and collecting donations. Set your nonprofit’s social media fundraising up for success by learning how to use these resources to boost your outcomes. Several popular platforms and their available tools include:
- Facebook. For eligible nonprofits, Facebook offers a host of Fundraising Tools to secure support from among its 2.989 billion active users. These include Facebook page fundraisers, supporter-led fundraisers, and Donate buttons. Nonprofits can access all of these tools through Facebook’s Nonprofit Manager, where they can also review key fundraising insights and transaction reports.
- Instagram. On this platform, nonprofits can add Support buttons to their profiles, create fundraisers, and even add a Donate button to live streams. These options make it easy for your organization to spread awareness of your fundraising efforts and appeal to users through more visual content.
- YouTube. The YouTube Nonprofit Program is designed to assist nonprofits with reaching a wider audience on the platform and connecting with more supporters through video storytelling. Notable features of the program include dedicated technical support and Link Anywhere cards that allow nonprofits to direct viewers to a donation page or other external landing page of their choosing.
- LinkedIn. LinkedIn for Nonprofits offers a dedicated support team and free nonprofit-specific resources related to hiring the right candidates, supporting employees, marketing, and connecting with potential donors on the platform.
Remember to be thoughtful when choosing the platforms your organization will focus on in its social media fundraising strategy. Use your specific fundraising goals and target audience to guide your decision. For instance, if you’re hoping to foster more peer-to-peer fundraising support and network with major donors on social media, you may look deeper into Facebook fundraising and LinkedIn for Nonprofits.
2. Empower Your Supporters
Peer-to-peer fundraising is a powerful way to cultivate relationships with your nonprofit’s supporters and leverage their personal networks to generate revenue for your mission. By empowering them to raise funds on your behalf, you can expand your organization’s reach through the power of social proof. Psychologically, people are more likely to give to a nonprofit when they see their family and friends doing so.
By taking these fundraising efforts to social media, you can make it easier for supporters to reach out to their connections and secure more funds for your nonprofit. This is why Facebook Challenges are so effective. The process is similar to a traditional peer-to-peer fundraising event, except it takes place completely online:
- Your nonprofit chooses a Challenge activity, preferably related to your cause, such as completing 30 sit-ups a day for an entire month.
- Supporters sign up to complete the Challenge while raising funds for your nonprofit through individual Facebook fundraisers.
- Participants join a Challenge Facebook group to find community with fellow supporters, discuss their progress, and bond over their passion for your cause.
Social media unites people with common goals, interests, and values, offering them a sense of belonging and connection. To help your nonprofit’s supporters hit the ground running with their fundraising efforts, provide them with some suggested messaging and images. According to Kwala's nonprofit branding guide, maintaining consistent branding is crucial for your brand recognition, so encourage as much consistency as possible between your supporters’ fundraisers.
3. Communicate Impact
At the end of the day, donors give to your nonprofit because they’re driven to contribute toward your nonprofit’s impact. As you seek support on social media, don’t forget to share how gifts will make a difference in advancing your mission. Then, following a fundraiser, update your followers on everything you were able to achieve with their funds. This not only adds credibility to your nonprofit, but keeps supporters invested in the long term.
There are several popular and engaging ways you can post your organization’s impact on social media, such as:
- Metrics and statistics.
- Impact stories of beneficiaries overcoming challenges.
- Video interviews of staff members or beneficiaries.
- Behind-the-scenes clips.
- Quotations from staff, beneficiaries, or supporters.
Keep impact centered in your donor communications and social media content so that your current and prospective donors can understand just how much you can accomplish with enough support. Encourage followers to share these posts with their networks to amplify your message.
4. Strengthen Relationships with Social Media Supporters
A nonprofit social media fundraising strategy isn’t complete without accounting for how you’ll retain the supporters you’ve acquired. They’ve already demonstrated a passion for your cause and a willingness to contribute toward your mission—all that’s left is to build up these relationships so that they stand the test of time.
GoodUnited’s Facebook birthday fundraisers guide recommends sending prompt thank-you messages to all of your supporters. You can accomplish this by using tools such as Facebook Messenger, which allows nonprofits to engage in conversational messaging with users. By prioritizing this type of one-on-one communication with supporters, you’ll be able to foster stronger relationships in-channel and encourage each individual to decide how they’d best like to continue contributing to your nonprofit’s mission moving forward.
With proper appreciation and stewardship, your nonprofit can create a dedicated community of supporters on social media. To deepen their engagement, offer other opportunities for them to get involved, such as volunteering, attending a fundraising event, or signing up for your email newsletter.
Social media opens up a world of possibilities for your nonprofit to expand its audience, spread awareness of its cause, and raise the necessary funds to carry on with its purpose. As you engage in social media fundraising, remember to have metrics in place to evaluate your performance. This ensures that you can continue fine-tuning your strategy for even better results in the future.
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Author
Nick Black - CEO of GoodUnited
Nick is the Founder and CEO of GoodUnited, a venture backed Software as a Service (SaaS) startup that helps nonprofits like Wounded Warrior Project, American Cancer Society, World Wildlife Fund create 1:1 relationships with their donors through the combination of data science and human judgement delivered in conversational messaging platforms. Nick's work with GoodUnited resulted in being named The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s 2017 Distinguished Young Alumnus.
Nick has been an innovator and leader at the intersection of business and social impact for over ten years. The concept for GoodUnited came through Nick's work co-founding and leading Stop Soldier Suicide, a 501c3 that grew from startup to national leader in reducing veteran suicide to the national average in ten years. Stop Soldier Suicide’s growth and impact resulted in Nick being selected as a Presidential Leadership Scholar and a Leadership North Carolina Fellow.
Nick co-founded Stop Soldier Suicide stemming from his experiences leading Paratroopers as a Ranger qualified Army Officer with the 173rd Airborne during 27 months deployed to combat zones in Afghanistan. During Nick's six years of service he was awarded two Bronze Stars, an Army Commendation Medal for Valor and as a Field Artillery Officer, was repeatedly ranked 1st among 50 peer Officers in a premier Infantry Battalion.
Nick received a BA from The Johns Hopkins University. At Johns Hopkins, Nick was a four-year member of the Varsity football team, the first two-time President of Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity and a four-year scholarship winner of the Army ROTC program. Nick received an MBA from Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina. At Kenan-Flagler, Nick was awarded the Rollie Tillman Award for Leadership, selected as a Kenan Institute Leadership Fellow, and was President of the Veterans Club.
Nick lives in Charleston South Carolina with his wife Amanda. Amanda and Nick have a five-year-old daughter and four-year-old son.
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