Using Twitter to Fundraise

How to Tweet Your Way to Fundraising Success

Twitter is an online social network created in March of 2006; think of Twitter as sending a text message over the web. Twitter is called “microblogging”; you have 140 characters to get your message across (tweet). Fundraising is all about building relationships and any successful fundraiser does just that. But the hardest part of fundraising is maintaining a relationship with the donor after the donation is given. I’m going to give you some suggestions on how to do just that in this article. But first let’s learn a few interesting facts about twitter.

• Twitter has over 400 million accounts worldwide.
• Twitter has 200 million active accounts worldwide.
• A Twitter user on average has 208 followers.
• A Twitter user on average follows 102 people.
• A Twitter user on average has sent out 794 tweets over the last 3 years.
• Twitter users send over a Billion tweets every 72 hours.

To make use of Twitter’s fundraising potential. You will have to do more than send several tweets all day.

The Goal

Twitter is a community builder.  Use it to build relationships with your volunteers, donors, and those who need your help. My focus in this article will be on gaining, building, and keeping your donors engaged in your cause all year long by using Twitter.

1. How to gain a follower.

It is very important that you state your group’s purpose. A potential follower needs to know your history. State your cause clearly. Be passionate about it, tell the world how and why you got involved. Get people interested, make them look forward to seeing what you will tweet today. Promote traffic to your website. Make sure your website is a treasure trove of valuable information about your group and really gives a lot of information about your cause. Find out what people think about your cause, ask questions. You will be amazed at how many followers you can gain across the world, who simply answered a question.

2. Build a community. 

Now that you have gained some followers, it’s time to build a community, by using Twitter to get people involved in your mission. The strategy we are going to use here is to combine offline and online fundraising tactics to grow a bigger audience.  Your goal will be to turn a follower into either a broadcaster, volunteer, potential donor, or all three. The best way to do this is to promote some type of event, or meeting. Use tweets to instigate attendance, let the community know everything about your event and what it’s for.

The broadcasters: I love these people. Ask them to “retweet” the event to their followers then have their followers do the same. Your cause could be tweeted to hundreds of thousands of people. There is a lot of potential in asking for “retweets.” Your broadcasters will get people hyped up, they are the ones who deliver the buzz.

The volunteers: These are the people who believe enough in your cause to show up and support you and the community that you’re building. When tweeting ask them to bring friends along who may be interested in your cause.  Let them know how they can help. Do you need a guest speaker, someone to manage a booth, or people to pass out flyer's?

The potential donors: If you have managed to properly engage and build your community. Most likely you will truly have a group of people who believe in your cause. Make sure you continue to ask questions and find out what interests others about what your doing. Eventually you will turn some of your followers into donors, others will bring donors to you, and many will listen.

3. Maintain a Lasting Community

As I stated earlier most groups are unable to maintain the relationship that was built to get the donation. Twitter gives you the ability to maintain that relationship with your donor. This in turn can help you to maintain your donor for years to come. Recognize volunteers, sponsors, retweeters, and donors. If they make a contribution of money or their time, tweet it. Keep followers up to date on the progress of your fundraiser. How much did you raise last week or at your weekend rally. If possible tell them how their contributions have impacted the lives of those it has helped and the community.

I hope you now see Twitter as more than just another social media platform. Instead I hope you think of twitter like I do. My followers and those I follow on Twitter are family. Treat them well and you will be rewarded.

Most of the statistics I posted in this article came from http://www.beevolve.com/twitter-statistics/ I would like to thank you guys for a very interesting read.

Thank you for reading,

Dasia

Using Facebook to Fundraise

How Facebook Can Help Your Fundraiser

Social media fundraising is about expanding your donor prospects as wide as possible on the internet. In this article we are going to talk about how to do that with Facebook. First let us get an idea of our potential with Facebook.

• There are an estimated 1 Billion people around the world using Facebook as of May 2013.
• The average Facebook user has 220 friends.
• 74% of online Americans have a Facebook account.

After reading those facts doesn't it make sense to use this resource to raise needed money for your cause?

Facebook is about sharing and we are going to use it to tell people about your cause. Get others to donate to your cause and tell their friends about it. There are two major goals you will have to employ to get the best out of Facebook.  Use it as a funnel and try to reach as many new donors as possible.

First Goal: Your Prep Work

• There are three things you will need to do to use Facebook as a funnel to your important pages or events.
• You will need to setup a donation or giving page. This page will explain your cause or reason for your fundraiser. Where and to whom the money is going to and how they can donate. Make sure you take your time and create the best page. There are many different online sources that can help you setup your donation page.
• You should create a Facebook fan page, that links to your donation page.
• If you’re going to host any type of event as part of your fundraiser, you will need to make sure you post it to your Facebook calendar and invite people to it.

Using Facebook as a funnel to these three things is very important. People need to know where to go to donate and need to know what your cause is.

Second Goal: Making Your Fundraiser Go Viral

This is all about how you interact with your audience on Facebook and use it to reach an even bigger audience than you ever could alone. This should be the overall goal of any fundraiser.  Post, post, post about anything that gives updates and adds online content about your fundraiser.

• Post about changes. If you update one of your pages, let your followers hear about it. If your goal is to raise $5,000, post an update at every $500 milestone.
• Post photos and videos of your event, group activities, and fundraising efforts
• Post thank you notes on your wall about donors.

Remember to include your Donor and Facebook pages in all your posts.

Your Audience

The more people you reach the more people who will likely donate to your cause. Facebook offers a very easy format to use social media to your advantage. Of all the social media options out there Facebook has the highest closing ratio of donors. Every time your online effort is shared by someone else on Facebook it reaches 100 times more people. 

This article was a labor of love for me as I love Facebook and social media. The information given fits in with the type of fundraising options my company promotes. My site can help you setup a donor/giving page and advise you on face to face fundraising or hosting an event. If you have read my earlier posts about how to create the ultimate fundraiser. Then you know that  you'll  need to combine face to face with online fundraising to have the best possible outcome.  

Happy Facebook Fundraising

Dasia

Social Media Fundraising

Giving a New Face to Fundraising

The use of social media as a way of raising funds is a very new concept. Before 2005 the only real options available for fundraising, were to contact your friends, family, and co-workers. To get donors from outside of your immediate circle, you would have to set up a booth or stand in front of a building. Face to face fundraising is still one of the best methods of raising money. I am simply proposing that it’s time for many groups to embrace what Social Media can do for their fundraisers as well. Social Media is here to stay and it only gets bigger and bigger each year.

Social media has changed the game in many ways. It allows you to reach a wider audience and raise more funds. By reaching out to potential donors through various social outlets. You can increase the amount you get in charitable donations and run a less expensive fundraiser than using telephone and direct mail. Social media has made it so much easier for donors to follow their money and see how it has helped their chosen charity. This gives your donor a way to fill comfortable that their donation is being used for the reasons they were compelled to donate. Usually some type of online portal is given where a running total of the funds received can be viewed.

A few Quotes

“It’s becoming more and more apparent with our future donors that we’re going to reach them electronically,” Ann Arbor’s development director Guy Barast

“Donor on social tended to respond better to mail solicitations, particularly those on Facebook and Twitter.” Joe Boland from Fundraising Success

Social media now gives a new outlet to fundraising. The best strategy is to combine it with old school face to face efforts. This will help to create the Ultimate Fundraiser and ensure that you reach your fundraising goal. 

As always thank you for reading.

Dasia