Social media has become an indispensable part of our life. So much so that 4.62 billion people around the world use social media. Since social media helps have a bigger impact today, businesses and organizations, including nonprofits, use it to their advantage. Nonprofits may expand their nonprofit organization to new heights even if they only reach 1% of all social media users.
You can boost nonprofit fundraising using social media to help nonprofits maximize efforts, attract donors and volunteers, raise more funds, and tell stories. This blog will talk about the benefits of social media for your nonprofit and how to use it to boost your nonprofit fundraising.
Benefit Of Using Social Media for Your Nonprofit
According to NonProfits Source Stats, 55% of people who engage with nonprofits on social media take some action. This clearly states the importance of creating social media presence for your nonprofit organization.
Let’s look at other benefits of using social media for your nonprofit.
Reach Wide Audience
Any nonprofit organization’s primary goal is to raise funds. And to achieve this objective, nonprofits must communicate their mission and impact to more and more people. Making a social media presence is the most effective approach to do this.
Using social media is an easy approach to reaching a wider audience. It helps you reach people who don’t even follow you. When more people discover your nonprofit business and what it does, the chances are that you can raise more funds.
For example, you can create content about your nonprofit business and share it on social media. When your current audience interacts with your content, their network learns about your nonprofit organization as well.
Keep Donors Engaged
Like for-profit businesses have to keep their customers engaged in getting repeat business. Nonprofits need to keep their existing donors engaged. The average recurring donor will donate 42% more in a year than a one-time donor, according to donation data by Network for Good.
Another benefit of keeping existing donors engaged is that they become your brand advocates and encourage others to contribute. There are multiple ways in which you can use social media to engage with your existing donors:
- Create social media content
- Create visual content like videos to share your impact
- Run social media contests
- Go live and talk to your existing donors
- Post Behind-the-scenes on your stories
Attract New Donors And Event Attendees
Not all existing contributors will choose to give again. As a result, nonprofits need to draw in new contributors. The most cost-effective way to do this is through social media.
You may educate people about ongoing fundraising initiatives using your social media platforms. Use social media to promote your organization and to share success stories, testimonials, and impact.
Running social media ads is another great way to get more people to learn about and support your nonprofit organization.
To attract new event attendees, share the details of your upcoming fundraising event on social media. It might grab the attention of people vested in the cause to attend the event.
Grow Your Network Of Partners and Volunteers
For nonprofits, growing their network of partners and volunteers has several benefits. When nonprofits partner with businesses, their funding increases, the donor base increases, and they build a community to grow.
Using social media, you can look for businesses whose values align with your mission. Get in touch with founders and CEOs to explain how this partnership will help you and their business grow.
Businesses are always eager to partner with nonprofits because it helps them build a strong reputation among customers. Studies say that 85% of consumers have a more positive image of a product or company when it supports a charity they care about.
Sharing the positive impacts of your nonprofit organization online inspires more people to support it, helping you gain more volunteers.
Improve credibility
Building credibility is important for your nonprofit organization. Why? Because it builds trust among donors, you will use their contribution for better purposes.
Often donors will look out for you on social media to know more about your nonprofit business before donating. The impact of donations made in the past, testimonials, and audience engagement are all important factors in building credibility.
Here are a few ways to improve your credibility using social media:
- Share high-quality content
- Encourage user-generated content
- Share the impact of previous donations
- Get others to advocate for your brand
Strategies To Boost Your Nonprofit Fundraising Using Social Media
We hope that it is clear why you should use social media for your nonprofit organization. However, having a presence on social media is not enough. A proper strategy is also needed to get the best results.
So let’s look at some tried and tested strategies to boost social media efforts for your nonprofit business.
Find The Right Social Media Platform
The first and foremost step for you is to find the right social media platform for your nonprofit. You’ll be better able to reach your target audience using the right platform. This also helps to maximize your social efforts and boost your nonprofit fundraising.
Nonprofits don’t need to worry as much about choosing the best social media platform as for-profit businesses do because they serve a specific market and audience.
But it’s important to understand that each social media platform serves a specific purpose.
For instance, Linkedin is a professional platform you can use to build “brand recognition.” While Instagram and Facebook can be used to raise awareness, market, target ads, storytelling, and create visual content.
The best way to find the right social media platform is to understand your donor base and choose a social media app popular among your demographic.
Add Donation Buttons
You should always make it simple for contributors to give, regardless of how successful your social media campaign is. Donation buttons can be used in this situation. Donation buttons act as call-to-action which lead donors to donation buttons and make it easy for them to contribute.
You may add these contribution buttons to sites like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube in addition to your website. It is not sufficient to simply add a donation button; you need also customize it to increase its effectiveness.
Check out Donorbox if you’re searching for a quick and simple solution to install a “Donation Button. With Donorbox :
- You can link a donate now button to your secure donation page.
- You can create a donate button for a popup modal form.
- Create membership campaigns and use various membership tiers to collect monthly and yearly membership fee.
You may add a “Donate Button” and make “Page Fundraisers” on Facebook for your organization. Similarly you can use “Donation Stickers” on stories and a “Donation Button” on your profile to raise funds on Instagram.
Take a look at this nonprofit’s Instagram profile, for instance, which includes a donation button.
Use Hashtags To Boost Your Reach
Even if you have a little presence on social media, you’ll understand how important hashtags are. Using hashtags, you can increase your nonprofit visibility and promote your ongoing or upcoming events and campaigns. Hashtags also play an important role in expanding your brand awareness.
Sometimes people don’t search for you intentionally, but they discover your nonprofit when they search specific hashtags.
For example, your audience might search for #nonprofitfundraising and discover your nonprofit posts as search results. They might contribute and follow if they like your work and the change you’re making.
Similarly, using a hashtag is the best strategy to promote your fundraising campaign. Using hashtags, you can reach more people than your immediate followers. When your campaign gets greater visibility, you attract new donors who help you boost your nonprofit fundraising.
For example, Look at this animal welfare campaign the Virat Kohli Foundation launched on World Stray Animal Day. The organization decided to promote this campaign with the hashtag #AllLivesMatter.
Create A Social Media Plan
It is important to have a social media plan in addition to having a presence on social media for your nonprofit organization. Why? Because your social media activity now has a direction and is measurable, which helps you get better outcomes.
One of the common reasons most organizations fail to grow on social media is because they don’t have clear goals. When you have a plan, you know what to post and when. All this will help you to maximize your social media reach and boost your nonprofit fundraising.
Most importantly, having a social media plan lets you know what to expect and makes tracking KPIs like leads and conversion simple.
Find Partners And Influencers
Do you know? The influencer marketing industry is projected to expand to a whopping $16.4 billion in 2022. Partnership and collaboration open a new door of opportunities for your nonprofit.
By partnering with influencers on social media, you can increase brand and cause awareness for your nonprofit. It also helps you build credibility and boost trust among the audience and new donors.
Influencer marketing is a kind of word-of-mouth marketing but with a wider audience. Influencers on social media have a large following and whom the audience trusts with their purchase decision. These can be micro or macro influencers.
Partner with influencers who, in your opinion, believe in the cause and will have a larger impact in spreading the word. When influencers promote your fundraising campaign or event, more people will show up.
For example, the largest charity football game in the world, Soccer Aid for UNICEF, recently teamed up with former athletes and celebs to collect money for kids all around the world, with all earnings going to UNICEF UK. Soccer Aid for UNICEF 2022 raised a record-breaking amount of £15,673,728.
Show Behind-The Scenes
The key to boosting your nonprofit fundraising is to keep your audience engaged. Also, the audience wants to engage with humans, not robots. Hence, sharing behind the scenes of your nonprofit organization helps you show a human side of your company,
Using a story feature on Instagram and Facebook is the best way to share the behind-the-scenes of your nonprofit. You can share stories showing efforts made by your team and volunteers. This gives your audience a deeper understanding of what your nonprofit organization does and its efforts to make a campaign successful.
The engagement and trust you build by showing your nonprofit’s authentic side will help boost your fundraising efforts.
For example, Alexander’s Hope, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting organ donation and offering cardiac testing that can save lives, frequently shares behind-the-scenes videos of their fundraising events, board meetings, team activities, etc.
Educate By Creating Content
Content marketing is on the rise. Hence, you should leverage the benefit of content to boost your nonprofit fundraising. Create content to educate the audience about the cause, industry news, and your mission.
Creating content for your nonprofit can attract new visitors, leads, and donors. 84% of video marketers feel video content has been successful at generating leads, according to Wyzowl’s State of Video Marketing Survey. Hence you can use platforms like Instagram Reels, TikTok, Stories, etc., to create short-form video content of 15-60 seconds.
The audience doesn’t engage much with self-promotional content. So make sure the content you create for your nonprofit shouldn’t be purely self-promotional. Keep it 80% informative and entertaining while 20% self-promotional.
Bonus Tip: Make storytelling an important part of your content strategy. Use it to engage your audience on an emotional level. As a result, your audience is more likely to take action by donating money, volunteering their time, or spreading the word.
On its Instagram account, for instance, the Keep A Breast Foundation provides audience members with breast cancer prevention advice and raises awareness about the disease.
Share Your Impact
No matter how big or small, you should post about your nonprofit’s achievements on social media. This helps people know what your nonprofit can accomplish. Let donors know how their contribution is being used to make a difference.
Sharing the positive effects of your organization also promotes credibility and confidence with both potential and current donors. This serves to inspire individuals further to give.
Celebrating achievements and expressing gratitude to contributors will help you create lasting relationships with them and attract more support down the line. Bringing in new donors and keeping existing ones engaged helps boost your nonprofit fundraising.
Look at this post by EcoShip Chicago. This is the best example of sharing the impact of your nonprofit on social media and encouraging the audience to contribute even if they’d still like to.
Boost Your Nonprofit Fundraising Using Social Media
You can quickly raise money for your nonprofit by making use of social media. If you already employ one or both of the above tactics but aren’t seeing the desired results, it may be time to evaluate and revise your approach.
In addition to having a solid social media strategy for your organization, it’s essential to monitor and evaluate the outcomes. There is no one-size-fits-all approach; you must continuously experiment.
Incorporate the social media strategies to boost your nonprofit fundraising, followed by a solid thank you to maximize your efforts.
Have you tried out any of these strategies? Let us know what works best for you in the comments section below.