E-GUIDE
• 5 Fundraising Myths Debunked
How to Convert Social Media Followers Into Donors
Donor Management Made Easy NetworkForGood.com 1 Table of Contents Turn Your ‘Likes’ Into Donations...... 4
Create Faithful Stewards...... 11
Social Media Cheat Sheet...... 14
ABOUT NETWORK FOR GOOD Since 2001 Network for Good has played an instrumental role in helping thousands of nonprofits raise more funds by engaging supporters and donors in a more meaningful and impactful way. Refreshingly easy to use, our suite of tools, including Donor Management Software, Fundraising Pages, and Personal Fundraising Coaches, provides nonprofits with a complete fundraising solution, saving them time and enabling them to succeed in fulfilling their mission. “Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give.” —Eleanor Roosevelt
Marketing to donors has changed dramatically thanks to the internet and the advent of social media. Organizations can now maintain continuous contact with their supporters at little to no cost. But all the ‘likes’ in the world don’t mean anything if they’re not converting into donations to your nonprofit.
How you choose to engage with your donors via social media is vital. Both to increase the amount of gifts to your cause, and to amplify your organization’s message.
In this guide we will show you how to acquire new donors via social media, how to engage your existing supporters through social media channels, how to turn their support into donations, and how to create stewardship programs. And we will also provide you with an actionable social media cheat sheet.
Donor Management Made Easy NetworkForGood.com 3 Turn Your ‘Likes’ Into Donations How to Engage Your Existing Supporters and Turn Followers Into Donors Through Social Media
Since Facebook’s launch in 2004, the growth and expansion of social media sites has been unprecedented. With the inclusion of Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, approximately 69% of Americans are on social media (according to the Pew Research Center’s report, “Social Media Use in 2018”). That’s approximately 225 million people in the United States alone.
Social media has had a profound impact over the last fifteen years, both domestically and internationally. It has become an essential method for your organization to build an audience and, in turn, generate donations.
So how do you choose which social media sites to include in your efforts and what type of messaging your nonprofit should post? This guide offers tips for utilizing the top social media sites to your advantage, top post ideas to use and a social media cheat sheet.
For nonprofits, social media allows you to:
• Build awareness for your organization
• Expand your outreach and network
• Promote your fundraising events
• Direct traffic to your website
• Control the messaging for your organization
• Engage with your followers in real time
Your social media followers are crucial in helping to spread the word about your organization and its cause. As you set up your social media pages, there are several things to consider.
Donor Management Made Easy NetworkForGood.com 4 Facebook Beginning in 2017, Facebook has allowed users to create birthday fundraisers to encourage their friends to donate to their favorite charity or cause. In 2018, Facebook users donated over $300 million on birthday donations. That’s one of the many reasons your nonprofit should have a presence on this site. Your Facebook profile is typically the first thing people see when they search for you on social media. One of the ways to make it easy for people to find you on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram is to use the same name and profile picture for each site.
For Facebook and Twitter, you’re allowed a profile picture and cover photo. The profile picture should be your nonprofit’s logo. With the cover photo you can get more creative and change it often to promote upcoming events, news about your organization, or to show pictures of recent success stories.
As you create your Facebook page, it’s imperative that your ‘About’ section is up-to-date with the following information:
• Your location and contact information
• Your website address
• Your company info and a brief bio
Be sure to list any upcoming events for your organization on the ‘Events’ section.
Now that you’ve created your Facebook page, it’s time to think about content. Focus on posts that will drive engagement and build awareness for your organization. Be personable, approachable, and fun. Posts with images, either video or photos, typically result in a stronger engagement level than text-only posts.
Donor Management Made Easy NetworkForGood.com 5 Shareable Content Fundraising Campaigns While your content shouldn’t focus solely on obtaining gifts from donors, it can be a driving force for your fundraising. When you add content for fundraising purposes, be sure to include links to your donation page, the event page, or wherever you’re trying to drive traffic and increase awareness.
Press and Announcements Keep your followers up-to-date on everything from grants and awards to press mentions and job postings.
Events Let your followers know about upcoming fundraising galas, community events, performances, panel discussions, town halls, etc. Take plenty of pictures at these events and post them afterward. Let your followers see what they’re missing!
Thank Yous Take the time to acknowledge major donors or fundraisers for your organization. Publicly acknowledging them with a photo and explanation of their gifts on your social media pages is a great way to take show your appreciation.
Tips • With Facebook you can track your engagement peak times so be sure to use this information to your advantage by planning content during these windows
• Advertising on Facebook can be a cheap and effective way to reach a broader audience by tagging other organizations and supporters with similar missions. Do you have an upcoming gala where you’re honoring a celebrity onor? Make sure to tag them so their social media followers know about the honor and your organization. Again, always be sure to include a link to drive the audience to the donation or Event page to help build awareness
• Facebook also allows you to “boost” special posts to reach targeted audiences based on location, demographics, and/or interests.
Donor Management Made Easy NetworkForGood.com 6 Twitter It’s hard to remember a time when the word ‘hashtag’ didn’t exist. Thanks to Twitter users know about world events, social causes and breaking news instantly. With 330 million active monthly users, 100 million active daily users, and 500 million daily tweets, creating your own presence on Twitter is a necessary marketing tool.
As with creating content for your Facebook page, refining your subject matter is necessary to get the most out of your tweets. Even though you are able to share your news with up to 280 characters, shorter tweets still perform better, so it’s important to condense your message, include a link to your website, and create hashtags to boost your success rate.
Shareable Content • Post tweets that are concise
• Link to your website, event, or donation page to drive traffic. Use a site like bitly or tinyurl to abbreviate links
• Add images to create engaging visuals
• Use external hashtags that will drive additional outside viewers to your tweet (e.g. #GivingTuesday).
Tips • Create hashtags (#) for your organization and specific events, and encourage your followers to use it in their tweets and retweets
• Include your Twitter handle on your website, other social media pages, and in all communications to build followers
• Invite your e-newsletter subscribers to follow you on Twitter
• Pin an important tweet to the top of your feed, so all visitors to your account will see it first
• Reply to all tweets and direct messages within an hour (if not sooner)
• Twitter users typically engage with breaking news, social movements, political activism, business announcements, and of course, celebrities and influencers. If you advertise on Twitter, target your ad to capture those interests for best results
Donor Management Made Easy NetworkForGood.com 7 Instagram Instagram has become one of the fastest-growing social media sites with 800 million active monthly users, 500 million active daily users, and 95 million photos shared daily.
You can use this channel to really showcase your organization’s personality to your followers. Use the story feature to post photos and videos that vanish after 24 hours. Use images to strengthen your fundraising campaigns. Make sure a link to your website, event or donation page is included in your bio.
Shareable Content • Stream live video from an event, town meeting, or rally
• Post photos of thank-you notes you have received from people who directly benefited from your organization’s mission
• Highlight your volunteers with photos and a brief description of the great work they do for you
• Promote events, campaigns, programs, and merchandise with images of invitations, venues, logos, etc.
• Share testimonial videos from your followers about why they support your work
»»Create hashtags and use additional ones to drive readers to your posts
Tips • Share candid images as well as professional photos from events (avoid stock photos)
• Keep videos short to meet Instagram’s 60-second limit
• Add searchable hashtags to your stories
• Use Instagram’s Live Video feature to connect with your followers in real time. Save your videos and share them again later
• When advertising on Instagram, use eye- catching imagery for a higher engagement level and use those photos in your next ad.
Donor Management Made Easy NetworkForGood.com 8 YouTube Launched in 2005, YouTube is the leading video-sharing site on the internet, hosting everything from movie trailers to social movements. With 1.57 million active monthly users, 30+ million active daily users and 5 billion videos watched daily, it can be a fun way to have viewers take notice of your work.
Shareable Content • Create a YouTube channel for your organization, and allow your followers to subscribe to your channel. They’ll receive notifications of new content and can share it on their social media pages
• As with Instagram, you can stream live video from your events, meetings, or rallies.
• Create a post-event video, condensing the highlights of the event into a viewer-friendly asset
Tips • While videos on YouTube don’t have to be professionally shot, the quality of your video impacts the overall branding of your organization. Don’t allow video that has poor lighting, audio, or shaky camera work to be posted to your channel.
Donor Management Made Easy NetworkForGood.com 9 LinkedIn A professional networking site that launched in 2003, LinkedIn has 500 million users and 250 million active monthly users. Create a business profile for your organization and connect to other organizations and peers, and share blog articles and eGuides to drive traffic and increase your influence in your particular field.
LinkedIn’s Volunteer Marketplace allows you to recruit volunteers or board members for your organization (for a small fee).
Shareable Content • Unlike the previous social media outlets we’ve discussed, with LinkedIn, frequency isn’t as high priority. Have a regular presence but only share content that is relevant to your audience and adds to your position as an authority in your field
Tips • For advertising purposes, LinkedIn offers a choice between Sponsored Content, Sponsored InMail, and Text Ads. Use these features to drive traffic during fundraising campaigns and events
Donor Management Made Easy NetworkForGood.com 10 Creating Faithful Stewards How to Create Stewardship Programs
Now that you’ve started to turn your followers into donors, it’s important to create a stewardship program for your organization. Not only will this create a sense of partnership with the donors, but they will feel appreciated and will most likely donate to your organization again knowing that their gift is making an impact. It will also help you to keep track of these donors as they evolve from new donors into loyal and major donors
While your goal is to encourage donors to increase their level of commitment, stewardship is about much more than inviting donors to give. Donors will feel the difference between an interaction focused on money and one that comes from a genuine desire to build a relationship. If you stay focused on the relationship and the partnership, it’s hard to go wrong.
Creating your own donor stewardship plan is essential for the continued fundraising success of your organization. Putting a plan in place isn’t as daunting as it may seem and can be done with the following steps:
1) Identify Your Donor Levels
As you continue to turn your social media audience into donors, it’s essential to identify their appropriate donor level. These levels will guide you as you build your stewardship plan. Building your stewardship program around different donor levels will also give you the ability to strategically move donors up to higher levels of engagement.
Here are three types of donor levels to get you started:
New Donors Most social media followers will start out as new donors, giving a single gift or small monthly donation. Since these donors are new to your organization, it’s essential to build trust and confidence so that they will feel a sense of partnership.
You can do so by taking the following steps:
• Send an immediate, personalized thank you that mentions the specific project or program that the gift will support
• Keep future correspondence focused on the how the organization will benefit from their gift
• Send regular communications that update the donor on the impact of their gift and how the program or project they gave to is progressing
• Since you’ve gained this donor via your social media channels, ask them to spread the word about your organization’s mission and great work via their social media pages
Donor Management Made Easy NetworkForGood.com 11 Loyal Donors Turning new donors into repeat donors is a sign that trust has been developed with your organization and its mission. The goal is to cultivate that relationship in order to increase regular gifts.
This can be done using the following steps:
• When a donor gives a large donation or makes a monthly gift commitment, follow- up with a phone call in addition to the initial thank you letter or email. They will appreciate the direct, personalized contact.
• Keep them abreast of how your organization’s programs or projects are going. You can do this via email updates or direct mail.
• Let them know how their gift is directly impacting projects and programs
• Offer loyal donors volunteer opportunities with your organization to make them feel more involved with your organization
Major Donors Major donors are those fully committed to your organization and those who regularly donate at high levels. Therefore, significant attention must be paid to these donors to keep them engaged and nurture their continued support.
Engage Major Donors in the following ways:
• Host donor appreciation events or award them at your annual fundraising gala
• Feature major donors in your annual reports
• Invite major donors to an onsite tour of a project allowing them to see firsthand how their gifts are impacting your organization
• Share plans for the next stages of these projects and let them know how their continued gifts will impact these plans
• Send a personalized thank you note from clients, students, or others who have been helped by the donor’s gift
• Share a photo that will publicly recognize them for their contribution(s)
Donor Management Made Easy NetworkForGood.com 12 2) Decide Which Stewardship Techniques To Utilize
Now that we’ve broken down the different level of donors, you can determine which techniques would best suit your organization at each donor level. Think of ways to acknowledge, recognize and cultivate a relationship at each donor level:
For example:
• Send a thank you email and gift receipt immediately after receiving a donation
• Personalize gift receipts to mention the specific project or program that the gift will impact
• Focus your thank you emails and letters on the donor and the difference that she/he will make
• Include quotes from the recipients and beneficiaries of programs and projects
• Host creative donor appreciation events
• Send articles and other information of interest to major donors
• Create special volunteer opportunities for donors who want to get more involved in your organization
Once you’ve created a list of ideas, start by selecting the ones that your organization could implement most easily and successfully. Make sure you have a selection of techniques for each donor level. Cull your ideas until you’re confident that you’ve chosen the ones that will give you the biggest impact with each donor group.
Communication is the key to the stewardship process. Dedicate a section of your plan to what your communications will look like. For example, what reports will you create? How many different versions will you need to produce? Where and when will you publish them? How will you share them with your donors?
Schedule a regular review process to take another look at your plan and gather feedback from your donors on how you can improve. Asking donors for feedback will allow you to continually make your stewardship program better and will also make your donors feel valued.
A nonprofit organization’s success depends on the strength of its relationships with its donors. Those relationships are built on each donor’s sense of partnership and confidence that their gifts are making the impact they intend. The goal of donor stewardship is to build engagement and a commitment to ongoing support that increases over time.
Donor Management Made Easy NetworkForGood.com 13 Social Media Cheat Sheet Building followers and converting them into donors doesn’t have to be a daunting task if you have a good social media strategy in place. How you interact with your followers and what you post—and when—can be the difference between receiving a donation or just a post like. Coordinating across your chosen social media channels allows you to bring a unified message to the public and build your brand’s awareness in the process.
First, Assess Your Current Social Media Presence • What sites are you on (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc)?
• How many followers to you have on each site?
• What are the demographics of your followers?
• How often do you post (daily, weekly, hourly, etc)?
• How engaged are your followers (how often do they like, share, retweet, etc)?
• How much traffic is social media driving to your website?
• How do your posts break down percentage-wise (promotion/advertising vs. news vs. community engagement, etc.)?
Tip: Ask members of your staff, board, and volunteers to review your social media presence and give you feedback.
Set Specific Goals • Create advertising campaigns that will increase the number of followers you have for each of your social media pages
• Track engagement (likes, comments and retweets). See what types of posts your followers engage with most often
• Drive traffic to your website from your social media channels
• Post on Facebook and Twitter daily
• Acquire new subscribers to your e-newsletter
Tip: Add a timeframe to your goals to help track progress, measure success, and adjust future goals. When running an advertising campaign via social media, track the number of click-throughs, page visits, etc. to determine your return on investment.
Donor Management Made Easy NetworkForGood.com 14 Create Content • Schedule posts in detail including date of post, time of day, and any photos or links that will be used
• Create a weekly, daily or monthly post that recognizes donors by featuring photos of them, acknowledging their gifts, calling out their fundraising efforts, or highlighting their volunteer time
• Share content across all of your social media sites to spread a unified message
• If you’re live streaming an event, make sure your staff members and properly equipped (no dying phone batteries during a panel discussion).
• Set aside time to create videos, blog posts, surveys, etc.
• Proofread everything and make sure your links work properly
Tip: Plan your social media posts well in advance so you are not left scrambling
Measure Success • Track both quantitative and qualitative outcomes
• Create a brief pop-up survey that asks the donor what prompted them to give. Make social media one of the selection options
• Gauge if you are on track to hit your monthly goal of increasing your number of followers
• Engagement is about quantity and quality. Are increasing numbers of followers commenting, sharing, or retweeting your posts? Are you being tagged in other posts? What posts had the most interaction? How can you recreate similar content?
• Is your content driving people to your website? Once there, are they subscribing to your e-newsletter or donating to your organization?
Tip: Use the analytic tools on each social media channel to track your results.
Donor Management Made Easy NetworkForGood.com 15 Final Tips • Make sure to include a link and an image to garner more likes, comments, shares, and click-throughs
• Post a variety of content on all channels: blog posts, photo albums, videos. Mix up your media and content—tell a story, ask for donations, announce an event, etc.
• Engage with your followers. Answer questions. Respond to feedback. Wish donors a happy birthday. Thank volunteers by name. We all love to be acknowledged, and we often share those posts with friends
• Focus on one to three channels—and test everything. Keep it simple. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are great places to start. Post different types of content to see what gets the most likes, shares, retweets, and comments. Learn where your audience is and optimize your content for each channel
Donor Management Made Easy NetworkForGood.com 16 Donor Management Made Easy Every piece of information about your donors and contacts adds a new layer to your relationship with that individual. Use your data to discover why they support your nonprofit, what programs interest them, what communications they respond to, and what events they attend. Organized, accessible information improves engagement, deepens relationships, and reveals a treasure trove of stories and testimonials.
Network for Good believes in the power of small nonprofits. We believe a donor management system should save you time and improve efficiency, in order to free you up to do the good you do in your community.
Donor Management Made Easy NetworkForGood.com 17