Online Social Network Fundraising Advice

During a learning session at the recent NTEN Conference in Washington, I discussed how, due to social media technology, average people have a lot more influence in shaping our world. FaceBook and Twitter have allowed individuals to broadly share images and information instantly. Revolutionary events in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya have been broadcast by individuals on the streets, when network news organization were kept out. Everyday people have become famous through YouTube, and famous people have become infamous (just Google “I got tigerblood” for a recent example).

I referred to this as the Democratization of Media, and made the point that, due to all these new media tools, your constituents have become more valuable than ever to your organization.

These same tools have also democratized fundraising. Small, fledgling organizations can tap into FaceBook and Twitter’s nearly 1 billion users, just like large ones. And those who support nonprofits are more and more becoming “free agents” who have many tools readily available to help them promote any cause they choose. It’s up to each nonprofit to make it easy to choose their cause.

How can you make it easy to do that? If you do nothing else, create a FaceBook page for your organization, then add a posting to it twice a week. Promote your FaceBook page, and ask (or beg) people to Like you. Ask your supporters to post on your page, or visit your page often and comment. This all helps get your organization’s name out in front of potentially 700 million people, or at least the 150 or so that the average FaceBook user connects with.

Now there’s an ongoing debate about whether using social networks alone provides any financial return. So, when you have your supporters using their own personal influence and reaching out to their social networks, give them the tools to close the deal and make the ask themselves, using a friend-to-friend online fundraising tool like DonorPages. When the person making the ask is known and trusted by the donor, and when that known and trusted person communicates their passion for your cause on their own personal fundraising page, the likelihood of a donation goes way up. Plus, the average amounts per donation are likely to double.

The Democratization of Fundraising can be a bit of a brave new world, but that’s what was said about the Internet itself 15 years ago. Can you imagine not having a website today? I encourage you to harness these tools to help your “free agent” fundraisers work their magic for your cause!