Social media is becoming a more prominent component of business practices and is helping nonprofits enhance marketing campaigns and fundraising success on a tight budget. The potential for social media to reach large audiences while requiring minimal investment from the organization makes it a valuable tool to spread awareness and drive donations.

When a nonprofit launches a website and online donation page, they should be optimized with features to connect to social media pages to make sharing a breeze and further connect the organization's online presence. Another component to a strong digital presence is ensuring the website and social media content are optimized for strong performance in search engine results. To assist nonprofits in enhancing their online visibility and fundraising potential, Google recently added charity information to Knowledge Graph.

What is Knowledge Graph?
Last year, Google added large panels with factual information about the topic being searched on the sides of search engine results pages. The Knowledge Graph panels summarize relevant information about queries and list related topics to strengthen searches or help users better understand concepts. The boxes can also be used to clarify what the user is searching for if his or her initial query terms are vague or generate inaccurate results.

The goal of the knowledge graph is to predict the stream of thinking or research the user may be working toward by providing supplemental options to strengthen results even when certain words were not queued.

Nonprofit additions
The Knowledge Graph will now hold information about associated nonprofit organizations to help people find a charity faster and understand their options for making a contribution online or through other channels. The side panels will also share insight into how users can follow the organizations listed on Google+, making it more important for nonprofits to stay connected to as many social media channels as possible to drive visibility.

Google's results on nonprofits will include key information regarding the organizations' causes, contact information, donation options and recent events. Knowledge Graph will also provide categories to segment nonprofits listed and tax deductibility codes to make it easier to submit donations and keep track of gifts for tax benefits. Google hopes to help boost nonprofit success online as well as advertise the Google+ channel more readily to increase fundraising and awareness of causes online.