Social Media Fundraising: Part One

If you’re new to social media fundraising, or you don’t have a digital bod on your fundraising team, listen up!

Over the coming months, we’re going to publish a series of posts to equip you with the tools and knowledge you need to succeed at social media fundraising. We’ll look at the demographics, pros and cons, and fundraising capabilities of each platform, and help you figure out which one/s to use for your fundraising campaigns.

While we’re at it, we’ll highlight some successful campaigns to get your creative juices flowing.

But before that, let’s look at why social media is an indispensable tool for charities.

Did you know that there are 4.7 billion social media users worldwide, spending a combined ten billion hours on social media every day? Or that 350,000 Tweets are sent every minute on Twitter, users spend an average of 2 hours and 31 minutes on Facebook every day, and 40% of LinkedIn users visit the site every day?

It’s hard to get your head around the numbers, isn’t it? But one thing’s for sure. With that many people at your virtual fingertips, you’d be foolish not to utilise social media as part of your fundraising strategy, particularly if you consider that 55% of people that interact with charities end up taking some sort of action, and 59% of these individuals go on to donate.

The benefits of social media

If the numbers haven’t convinced you of the importance of social media as a fundraising tool, maybe the benefits will.

Here are just a few of the many things social media enables charities to do:

• Raise awareness: with more than half of the world's population active on social media, it’s safe to say your charity has the potential to reach a LOT of new donors for little to no cost.

• Demonstrate impact: the power of social media lies in its potential for storytelling. Using photos and videos to show your charity in action and tell the stories of your beneficiaries is a powerful way to show donors how their money is helping your organisation achieve its mission.

• Non-targeted fundraising: unlike direct mail, social media is a great way to share information about your organisation and ask for donations without donors feeling like they’re being targeted or solicited.

• Forge emotional connections: text on a page is great for getting information across, but images, videos and human reactions bring the scope of your work to life. Potential volunteers are more likely to get involved if they can picture the people they will help. And donations will be more forthcoming if people can identify with the human angle – the idea that their donation could help someone like them/their mum/child/friend.

• Generate income: Facebook has a suite of free fundraising tools to help you collect donations and enable supporters to fundraise on your behalf.

Final Word

Now you know why you should be utilising social media for fundraising; we’ll move on to how you can utilise it. Keep an eye on the Bamboo blog for the next post!

Don’t forget, if you’re looking for a digital whizz to help you manage your social media fundraising, we can help. Give us a call on 020 3750 3111 or info@bamboofundraising.co.uk to find out more.