Leverage Facebook’s crowdfunding facilities to raise donations
Facebook is a community 1 billion people strong! Of these, 50% log on to Facebook every day. This is why many non-profit organisations are using Facebook features to raise awareness about their causes, invite donors to their events and increase donations. Facebook itself has published several guides for non-profit organisations in its Resource Center. Let’s look at some ways in which you can drive donors to your cause:
1. Establish Trust:
Facebook users need to know that you are a trustworthy organisation that spends the donations in the right direction. They also need to know more about your organisation, its history, present and future goals to gauge your vision. You need to understand that when you’re motivating people to spend money online, you need to put yourself out there as a credible non-profit organisation.
- Share History: Share your organisation’s history and let them know how your non-profit came into being. This establishes your goals and helps them understand your roots.
- Post photos: Upload photos about your work and behind-the-scenes of what you do so people can know exactly how you carry out campaigns. Photos are the best way to tell stories of your volunteers, collaborations and achievements.
- Share success stories: Regularly share testimonials from others and success stories of people or organisations you have helped. Nothing works like an endorsement from a real person that the audience can connect with.
2. Personal Tone & Voice:
Stay personal with your fans and directly involve them in the campaign process. Be honest and open-minded as a friend would be. The friendlier you are, the more your Facebook fans will feel comfortable around you and the more willing they will be to donate to your cause. Your number one aim should be to educate your fans about your cause so that they can become potential donors.
- Volunteers: Always try to show the faces behind your cause. People connect with other people of their own age making extraordinary stories in ordinary circumstances. Posting about who works for you will help your Facebook fans relate with your organisation better.
- News and events: If your non-profit organisation got featured in a news story, share it with your fans. Also make use of the “events” tab at the top of the Facebook page to invite donors to your events.
- Applications: Facebook pages allow organisations to create more tabs of apps at the top. Create apps to engage with your donors and give them easy ways to donate for your cause. Apps add interactivity to your page and allow fans to engage with your organisation for longer periods.
3. Generate Buzz:
Keep your Facebook page alive with polls, questions, photos and videos. Generate hype about your campaigns by giving incentive to your fans to share your page and posts. A recommendation from a friend becomes more personal than a sponsored ad or story.
- Sponsored Stories: Facebook allows organisations to buy space in users’ News Feeds through sponsored stories. Consider the option if your marketing budget allows. A sponsored story can be a great tool for effectively targeting your audience with a specific post.
- Sponsored Ads: These are different from sponsored stories because they appear on the right side and also display the count of friends who may have liked the page.
- Share links: Add the “share on Facebook” links to your website pages and blogs to drive traffic to your official Facebook page.
4. Grow Your Network:
Connect with more and more fans on Facebook by incentivising shares through apps and posts. You can also draw corporate attention to your Facebook page so that your cause gets the spotlight among other organisations. If your non-profit organisation is spread over the globe, create local landing pages customised according to local languages and cultures to cater to global audiences.
5. Gauge Public Interest:
Keep analysing your audience’s feedback on your page using Facebook Insights. Track what people like the most, which posts generate the most engagement and where your fans are logging in from. Keep an eye out for changing trends so you can effectively reach out to your fans. Share relative information on your Facebook page that may not be strictly about your organisation, but educates your fans about your cause.
Some great examples are:
- The “Donate Your Timeline” campaign by Ogilvy Brussels to raise awareness about Alzheimer’s disease.
- “Movember” campaign by Movember to raise awareness about men’s health issues.
- “Lean In” – a non-profit organisation that helps women build confidence and lean in to achieve their aims in life.
CONCLUSION:
Facebook provides a number of facilities to non-profit organisations to help spread the love around the world. With more users than any other social network, it is a promising platform to raise awareness about causes and engage large communities of people. Facebook itself is taking initiatives to help these causes such as its Facebook Stories page which shares the best uses of Facebook by non-profits. It has also published a guidebook for non-profits and a document with tips on connecting with supporters on Facebook. If you have any questions or comments about this topic, let us know and we’ll be happy to help you out.
