In 2014, professional golfer Chris Kennedy tweeted a call for three friends to throw a bucket of ice water on their heads for 24 hours or donate $100 to support ALS. The famous ice bucket challenge went viral, raised $115 million in donations and funded new treatments for the disease. The campaign set the standard for social media fundraising.
Not every social media fundraiser produces such stunning results. There is competition for thumb scrolling, and the platforms themselves continue to limit the reach of organic posts.
But social media is still fertile ground for fundraising. Non-profit organizations, universities, government agencies and hospitals will find energetic supporters there who are ready to help achieve financial goals. The trick is to know how to do it.
In this post, you’ll learn about the unique advantages fundraisers have over other social media organizations. You will see successful campaigns to simulate. And you will find a set of tools to make your team more efficient.
How to Raise Money on Social Media: 12 Tips
An organization in rural Iowa can connect with wealthy donors in Singapore. A niche non-profit organization can connect with its top supporters with a few clicks. This is the power of social media fundraising.
But fundraising promotion on social media is about more than just posting beautiful photos. These 12 tips will show you how to create a fundraising strategy, connect with your followers, and track your progress.
1. Create a purposeful plan
Any social media fundraising campaign needs both a goal and a roadmap.
The destination is your destination. This is probably based on donated dollars. But it can also include other Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), such as the total number of new donors, repeat donors, or the average donation amount. Choose a reasonable goal based on previous trips and an extended goal. This will motivate your team to complete previous campaigns.
The roadmap is the blueprint for your campaign. It is how and when it will lead to your goal. Your social media campaign plan should include:
- Start and end dates
- Types of posts you will post
- Hashtags, both specific (like #ALSicebucketchallenge) and general (like #ALSsucks).
- How will people donate?
- Roles and responsibilities in the team
- Budget for things like paid post distribution, if applicable.
Consistency is key in social media. So when creating the plan, explain how you will post content regularly. One option is to create a batch of posts and schedule them to release at the optimal time.
The demographics of your donors and the type of content you will post determine which social platforms you use.
Here’s what each of the most widely used social media apps looks like.
Facebook users look older than the average audience of other social networks. It is also an all-in-one platform for publishing videos, images, long text, and managed events.
The Instagram audience is concentrated between the ages of 18 and 34. The platform is primarily visual, so there is room for a photo and video carousel.
Twitter’s user graph is similar to Facebook, almost 60% of them are between the ages of 25 and 49. The best place for 280-character comments is to use Twitter for direct donation requests, as Generous Heart did with this tweet.
The day is almost upon us. Give generously!! 💙 #401gives #donate #fundraising #nonprofit #youth #organization #community #grassroots #bipoc #leadership #lgbtq #volunteer #fyp #share https://t.co/qDKTrojJZs pic.twitter.com/Asy0qeuK18
— Generous Heart (@GenHeartUSA) March 22, 2023
LinkedIn is the place for professionals to find jobs and connect. Regardless of age, here you will inspire corporate donations.
TikTok is the platform to use if your goal is to reach Gen Z; most people on the platform are under 34 years old. The key to success here are funny short tutorial videos.
YouTube has a unique place on this list as a place for long videos. They give you more room to tell a deeper story. YouTube has a cross-generational audience, so just make sure your content is relevant to your target demographic.
3. Optimize your content for mobile devices
Most people scroll through social networks on their phone (for example, 97.4% of Facebook users access through a mobile app). You want your posts to shine on small devices.
Here is a fundraiser message from Water for People optimized for mobile devices.
Note that the text is short and clear. This is important because Instagram clips captions until someone clicks on them. Clearly write your most important statement in the first few words.
The post has most of its hashtags after the body text. Hashtags are important, but you don’t want them to block other copy. You can also hide them in a comment.
See how they shortened the link through Ow.ly? This is another way to keep the copy dense. They also put a full link in their bio. IG doesn’t allow links in captions, so make sure sponsors know where to go.
What’s missing from this post are donation buttons so that followers can donate without leaving Instagram. We’ll explain how it works in a minute.
4. Show and tell your story
Researcher Paul Zak has uncovered an interesting truth about our brains. We are more likely to support a cause when we hear stories about it.
That’s why your fundraising messages should include emotional stories about the people, places, or animals you’re helping.
The Make-A-Wish team is master at storytelling on YouTube. Their features show supporters how their donations make a difference in lives. Watching a child through the most difficult times meet their hero is a powerful motivator.
These videos are beautifully shot, but you don’t need a professional videographer or voiceover professional to create your own. Sixty seconds of recording on an iPhone or a well-timed photo can be just as convincing. Pair it with a short paragraph about how your organization is using the funds, and new donors will seize the opportunity to help.
5. Include donation links in your posts
Alright, you’ve won the hearts and minds of new supporters with your amazing posts. But if it takes seven steps to donate, some donors will move on. Thankfully, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok allow donors to donate without leaving the platform.
Here is an adorable example from a hotel for stray dogs. They introduced a cute dog carousel and then added a fundraising link to the post.
Subscribers who click on the link go to the donation page on the IG app. They can donate directly or share the campaign in their posts and stories. The whole process is more simple than going to an external page.
Facebook also has an automated thank you tool to show appreciation without any extra work from your team. And several apps allow you to add donation stickers or buttons to live streams so that donors can donate during live streams.
6. Use your bio
Posts are usually the star of your social media fundraising campaign. But don’t forget your biography. This is a valuable space that you can maximize on every social media platform.
Find out how St. Jude Children’s Hospital uses your profile to raise money.
Bio is so effective because it has:
- “Donate Now”button that leads to their donation site
- fundraising link for followers to donate and share from Instagram
- link to their store
- a few attached stories that show other ways to give
This is an efficient use of valuable real estate.
7. Enlist Support
The network effect affects social networks. One request can get into thousands of channels when people share it.
The American Heart Association took advantage of the network effect with the #keepthebeat challenge. They asked followers to share videos with creative ways to move to the beat. Dancing, bouncing and even kicking were on the table.
The people posting the videos challenged three friends to find their own way of keeping the beat. Each post included donation text for viewers to donate from their phone.
These peer-to-peer fundraisers are popular on social media, and there are several versions of them. Birthday campaigns, where users post your donation link on their birthday, are simple. Giving days like #givingtuesday are also common.
8. Collaborate with creators and KOLs
It takes time to build an audience of passionate patrons. Shorten the process by tapping into existing networks of popular social media creators and key opinion leaders.
Step One: Find the right fundraising partner. Aim for someone who has the audience you want to reach and an atmosphere that suits your purpose. Here the British Red Cross partnered with men’s lifestyle guru Ehab Ali.
Ali showed fashionistas that they can find great clothes at BRC resale stores and support a great cause at the same time.
Ali and BRC used the Collaborate feature on Instagram. You can see that both accounts are marked. This means that BRC followers and Ali’s audience are sewing a video. Your partners can also add donation buttons to their posts or links to your donation pages in their bios.
However you choose to collaborate, don’t worry about finding top tier celebrities with huge audiences. (Although if Selena Gomez wants to get your organization out there, that’s even better.) Look for micro-influencers with a few thousand followers who are easier to reach. Or partner with like-minded corporations or other nonprofits. Anything to help you boost your signal to a new audience.
9. Consider paid posts
Social media algorithms prioritize messages from close friends. This is great for user experience, but makes it harder to reach sponsors through organic posts. One solution is to spend money on sponsored posts.
Sponsored posts, tweets or videos are available on almost all social media channels. The best part is that you can choose the perfect audience to view your donation requests. Let’s say your organization helps people abroad, as the World Food Program does. You can ask Facebook to show your post to travel lovers.
Source: US World Food Program on Facebook.
You can target audiences based on demographics such as location, age, interests, or activity such as former donors. You can even find Lookalike Audiences with similar characteristics to people who already follow you.
Of course, the downside of sponsored posts is the cost. But if you start with a small investment, it won’t break the bank to test the water. Then use the metrics to see what’s working and focus your budget on the places that deliver the most value.
10. Say thanks and celebrate victory
You set the criteria for success in your plan. When you reach them, celebrate publicly and thank all the donors who helped you achieve this. You will remind current supporters that their help matters and inspire new donors.
When the American Heart Association hit the million dollar milestone with one of their campaigns, people turned to TikTok to share their love.
@americanheartassociation THANK YOU!! YOU ALL & so many others have come together to raise $1,038,645.56 & counting for the American Heart Association! This life-changing accomplishment and milestone will save lives for years to come. This is a testament that the power we have when we come together is unlimited. ❤ @kfiercce @kristinekapow @kickinitwithk20 @marriedwithflaws @nadines_heart @scottdhenry @shannonwinnington @duetraiders @swoledds @thehealingheart @themccartys @vanessacutting
Several dedicated AHA supporters have posted short videos dropping the streamer and congratulating on the big win.
The beauty of this strategy is that the AHAs have done all the work. They also shared the post with their network, expanding their organic reach beyond the charity’s page. That’s a lot of attention for their fundraising campaigns without a lot of work left to the volunteers.
11. Monitor and analyze performance
Results grow wherever you put your attention. Analytics let you see which posts and platforms are generating the best results. What if your Instagram paid ads are getting a lot of views, but more people are donating through Facebook? You can shift your paid budget to Facebook and use IG to raise awareness.
The analysis of the best results includes both general representations and detailed tracking at the post-level level. Here are a few metrics to check:
- Engagement rate
- Impression
- Like
- Profile visits
- Clicks on the site
You can get these metrics individually from each platform. Or you can create a custom dashboard in Hootsuite that collects data from multiple social media apps.
It’s much easier to compare when you see similar results from each social media app. And with Hootsuite, you get benchmarks from your industry so you know how you compare.
12. Use the right tools
Most fundraising organizations operate lean. There is never enough time to do all the work that needs to be done. The right social media tools allow your team to work more effectively and efficiently.
Social media platforms offer options to help fundraisers bypass other organizations.
- The Facebook Fundraising Toolkit includes donation buttons, support fundraisers, and automatic “thank you”responses.
- Instagram offers support buttons, fundraising messages, donation stickers, and multiple ways to collaborate with creators and celebrities.
- The non-profit YouTube program provides you with dedicated technical support and Link Anywhere Cards—links that direct viewers to your fundraising website (there is also a YouTube program specifically for educational organizations).
- TikTok for Good has a variety of crowdfunding campaign ideas and fundraising tools, including account management support.
- Twitter provides royalty-free advertising credits, advertising resources, and skills training to help nonprofits meet their fundraising goals.
You will also need a fundraising landing page if it is not already built into your website. Donorbox and Little Green Light are good options.
Hootsuite helps you create, schedule and manage social media posts and campaigns.
Composer is where you’ll create and schedule posts in Hootsuite. You can write text, add images and videos, and even create posts with Canva (without leaving the Hootsuite dashboard).
There is a Grammarly plugin to avoid annoying spelling mistakes. In addition, Composer will tell you the best time to publish your post.
Hootsuite also supports your collaborative efforts. Assign permissions to team members so that only the right people can create, schedule, or approve content. Then let the team view and reply to all private messages, comments, and Twitter mentions from one centralized inbox. No more making dozens of people check dozens of different mailboxes.
You will most likely be posting on various social networks. In Hootsuite, you can manage all paid and organic posts from Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. And, as mentioned, you can view analytics in one place.
How to Raise Money on Social Media: Frequently Asked Questions
Can social media be used to raise funds?
Social media is a low-cost and easy-to-use platform for fundraising and donor engagement. More people say social media inspires them to donate than email, websites, print or TV ads.
Can I raise money on Instagram?
Instagram has several benefits for fundraising. There are special tools for collecting donations and spreading the word about your cause, as well as a large and active community of potential supporters.
Which social media platform is best for fundraising?
The best social media platform for fundraising depends on the demographics of your donors and the types of content you will be sharing. Facebook and Twitter users are getting older, TikTok is younger, and Instagram has a more diverse audience.
How to get people to donate on social media?
Social media is a flexible communication channel with many ways to motivate donors. You can post a direct donation link in your account, ask followers to create fundraising posts on your behalf, and partner with creators to connect to their network of followers.