Discussion has been taking place about fundraising through social media and whether it should or shouldn’t be done.
It can be a tough question to answer, given that posting something on your social sites about your event or appeal is seen by some fundraising, whereas others see it merely as promoting the event/appeal.
Are people actively using social sites to ask for donations? Sure they are. What has their success been like? That can be a hard one to answer given the lack of data as to what “caused” the donation or pledge.
It seems that this will be a discussion that will be with us for some time. Things will evolve, people will see social media as more than a way to connect, engage and share information and as a tool for direct sales, fundraising, job search and much more, but for now concern is whether nonprofits should put effort into using social media for fundraising.
Fundraising Online looked at this subject, but with some of the discussions recently it’s worth looking at again.
In Fundraising Online a link was given to #fundchat which outlined some do’s and don’ts:
1. Don’t think social media changes the age-old strategy, at least not completely
2. Do – use social media to drive web traffic
3. Don’t – think a ‘LIKE’ always means it
4. Do – give easy, specific & real ways for people to help
5. Don’t – just ask for things
8. Do – follow, monitor and support your closest champions
9. Don’t – forget you have other work to do
Nonprofits should perhaps be focussing on using social media to connect, engage and share information, and to also communicate with their current supporters – this will help raise the online profile of the nonprofit, which will eventually result in giving.
Using social media as an appeal tool – a tool to solicit funds could work, but is it the best thing a nonprofit could be doing? It could be seen as spam, it could be seen as being no different to an appeal envelope.
It’s likely to be better for nonprofits to be using social media to help tell their story. By telling the story, the work of the nonprofit and who/what benefits, nonprofits will have a better reach and more engagement, this will result in online giving (note).
Passive giving through social media is likely have a bigger return than using social media to drive donations, this may be wrong – it’s still early days of nonprofits and social media.
Agree, disagree?
Are you using social media to solicit donations?
What’s working?
Note: Keep an eye out for the Online Giving post to come
charitymattersnz.com 