There are plenty of ways to get creative with fundraising. We’ve got a few recommendations here for you to take advantage of to make the most of your social media fundraising efforts.
Social Media
Social media fundraising may get a bad reputation for failing to generate response, but if you don’t know how to handle a steering wheel, how can you drive a car? In the same way, you need to know the tools available to you on social media and how to make them work for you.
There’s a problem with the “direct ask” method. Diffusion of responsibility, or the “bystander effect”. If you pump your message out into the open it’s easy for viewers to simply say that other people will take care of it. You need to make the message more personal.
A good way to get around this is to tell the whole story. What does that look like? Well, what’s the history of your organization, why was it started, why do you personally care about the mission, and who does it benefit? Go beyond quips, make this personal, open your heart up to people so that you can relate to one another. A good story can sometimes make all of the difference.
Keep in Contact
Building onto this, if you are already well into storytelling mode make sure that you have open channels to keep in contact with existing donors. You share the mission in common and if they are willing to give money they are likely to be willing to talk in the future.
Call to Action
Having people read your content is a great start, but if your readers never go beyond being readers you won’t make much progress. That’s why you need a call to action, a section that primes your readers to take specific action.
Not sure your already existing call to action (CTA) is doing all it could be? Set up an A/B test to regularly test other options for better results with minimized risk.
Creating Urgency
Set a deadline
You need to have your budget established before acting, and you can’t wait forever. Give your donors a deadline to donate by to fight off any procrastination. If people know that it doesn’t matter what help you receive if it’s not before next Tuesday they’re much more likely to help.
Time dependent incentives
If you don’t want to press a hard deadline on your donors you can change things around and have the best incentives to donate available up front.
Look for the Shares
You have a certain number of people you’re able to reach, and each one of those people has a certain number of people they can reach. While most events won’t reach the same level the ice bucket challenge did, a polite request to share the topic with others can push your initiative further than you could on your own.
Always Say Thank You
It may seem so innocuous that it is silly to mention, but it makes a difference. Does it rub you the wrong way to go out of your way for a friend and never be thanked by them? Don’t allow your nonprofit to be “that person”. You are relating to people as a person, and how your organization treats people will be remembered.
On that note, thank you for reading and we’re glad to be able to lend a bit of helpful advice.
