Fundraising in any capacity isn’t always the easiest thing to do, especially during times of hardship. Reaching out to your community and participants via phone or going door to door can feel a bit intrusive, emails can go ignored and oftentimes the return on the effort to communicate can be rather dismal. Instead of hounding your members and participants with a barrage of phone calls, emails and unexpected visits, why not utilize your organization’s social media accounts to be a part of the fundraising solution? There are several ways in which you can implement a great social media strategy to take your non-profit fundraising to the next level. Read on to discover how!
Add a Donation Button to Your Page
Both Facebook and Instagram, two of the biggest social media platforms in the world, have the ability to set up donations but in different ways. Take a look at the breakdown of each below:
Facebook
Before you do anything on Facebook when adding a donation button, you either need to have the admin of your organization’s Facebook page do the following, or add yourself as an admin of the page. You also need to enroll your charitable organization with Facebook, which takes about anywhere from two to three weeks to be revised and approved.
To add a donate button you need to do the following:
- Go to your organization’s Facebook page.
- Click Add a Button (if you already have a button, you will need to change the current one, as Facebook only allows each page to have one button live at a time). Below your organization’s cover photo there should be a button in blue—it might say Send Message or something else—hover over that button and click edit.
- Select Shop With You or Make a Donation, then click Donate.
- Select Next and then Donate Through Facebook.
- Click Finish.
Remember, the ability to add a donation button will not be present until you enroll your charitable organization with Facebook.
You can also add a donation button to your live video on Facebook.
Instagram
Just like Facebook, you must sign up for Facebook’s charitable giving tools to access Instagram’s donation features. To create a fundraiser—or personal fundraiser, as Instagram calls it—you will need to do the following:
- Link your Instagram and Facebook accounts.
- Make sure your Instagram account is a Business account.
- Once set up, go to your organization’s profile and tap the menu icon in the top right corner (the three dots).
- Tap Settings.
- Tap Business.
- Tap Donations.
- Tap Next to add donate button to profile and swipe button to enable.
- Once completed a donate button will appear on your organization’s profile.
Stickers
You can enable donation stickers for your non-profit organization’s fundraiser to be used by others on the platform within Stories on both Facebook and Instagram.
- Go to your organization’s Facebook page and click Settings. This will be at the bottom right of the browser.
- Select Donations from the menu on the left-hand side.
- Check box to allow people to add donation stickers on Instagram Stories.
- Click Save.
Post Frequently
When it comes to sharing information about your fundraiser, don’t just post once and be done—you have to keep at it. However, you also don’t want to post too much. The sweet spot is a few times a week.
And don’t forget to also post in the Stories section of Instagram and Facebook. Some people prefer to watch Stories versus scrolling their newsfeeds.
Add Engaging Video and Imagery
People tend to skim when it comes to reading the posts on their newsfeed, and with Instagram being an image-centric platform, you have to up your game when it comes to imagery, and even video, to get noticed. Make sure your imagery and video is relevant to the fundraiser you need donations for and that they are high-quality and professional. You really want them to pop, stand out and get people to stop scrolling and take action.
You can also host a few Instagram/Facebook live sessions where you discuss the fundraiser and/or interview staff, people involved and those that would benefit from donations.
Run Ads
If your organization has the budget, running ads on Facebook and Instagram for your fundraiser would definitely spread awareness and garner donations. However, you first need to determine if the risk of spending money to make money for your fundraiser is worth it. Once you've decided to green light running ads on social media, you can then determine the language, imagery, budget and audience for a successful marketing campaign.
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