3 Reasons the Future of Your Nonprofit Depends on Social Media
Nonprofits have been hit hard by the recession. Now many nonprofits also face the typical “donor fatigue” fundraising challenges that follow any major natural disaster such as the recent earthquakes in Haiti. All of the traditional funding streams have been hurt, and nonprofits, by and large, keep plugging along – doing more with less, to hang on till better times when they can again focus on their mission with vigor. It’s hard when you are short-staffed and under funded to consider jumping into anything new, but for nonprofits your very survival depends upon committing to building and maintaining a strong social media presence. Here’s why:
1. ALL of your donors are online. The stereotype that social media is for kids is simply false. Study after study proves it. The largest growing demographic on Facebook is women over 55. More interesting, there has recently been a big jump in social media users age 63-75! Individual micro-donations can be difficult to solicit because it takes so many more of them to make a dent in your organization’s budget, but remember, this strategy won Obama the White House. Social media can also support fundraising event participant growth (from galas to individual pledge events like walks) through the sharing of invitations or requests to friends.
Even traditional foundations’ program officers can be reached and moved by your relationship, something that can get a lot stronger when you are Facebook friends or even connected on LinkedIn. You already know that your Millennial supporters are on Facebook and Twitter, but so is everyone else and their grandmother.
2. Corporate giving is changing. More and more corporate grants are crowdsourced through competitions, like the Pepsi Refresh Project. Online cause marketing simply reaches a bigger audience than an offline event sponsorship or gift. As best practices are identified the popularity of this method of corporate philanthropy will only increase. Other brands are simply giving away money to a charity they choose as a quid pro quo for your attention to their message, for example Coke’s Live Positively Campaign rewards users for sending a Coke to their friends with a $1 donation to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. These are only two out of many examples of this growing trend.
Look at your grant application. See where it asks what percentage of your board is giving? That is because if your own leaders don’t care enough to give, why should your donors? Competing in an online funding competition driven by social media requires good online presences to succeed for the same reason. It looks like a lack of effort and doesn’t engage your audience if you don’t include pictures, videos, links to blog posts or reviews by a client who has benefitted from your services (equivalent to letter of support), links to current research, and customized profiles. You also need to develop a community of online supporters to act as your ambassadors and mobilize their friends to vote for you. This is a unique opportunity to tell your story and back up your case for support. If you don’t care enough to showcase your good work, why should they?
3. While traditional fundraising has been down, online fundraising is up. For example, 2009 was a record breaking year for Network For Good – they processed over $100 million. The popular Facebook application Causes also reports huge growth; in 2009 they reached $20 million in donations to date. $14 million of that was given in the last 12 months, and year over year giving quadrupled. This trend is not going away. You can’t ignore it.
The field of fundraising is in a period of transition. If you have been in the third sector long enough, do you remember when all your foundation grants started moving to online applications? It was an adjustment. Remember before that when the concept of evaluation became increasingly important, particularly qualitative outcome-based over quantitative results? It was an adjustment. Now every single funding stream you have ever had is going to or already has transformed because of social media. Direct mail; events; foundation grants; corporate giving; individual gifts; memberships; government affairs and advocacy for funds; and even major gifts will never be the same again. If you aren’t doing the best job you can with social media, you aren’t doing the best job you can in fundraising. It’s time to adjust.
Does your board and staff leadership understand that social media is not just important but essential to your survival and growth? What are the biggest challenges your organization has faced in implementing social media strategies?
Many of my clients complain that, due to an aging donorbase, they need to reach out to a younger crowd. Where else are they other than Facebook?
I bet @joewaters would have a lot to add to number 2.
I think that the question is less about where to go find them than it is about how to reach them by adopting the right tone and messaging. You can find younger constituents in other niche communities that might be relevant to a specific client. But even if they are members on another social site, they are most likely also members of Facebook, and it’s easier to target and reach them effectively on Facebook.
Shannon,
I don’t hold a board position, etc. for a non-profit but I do have a couple of people in women’s entrepreneurial group who do. The information you shared is vital to those wanting to increase participation and broaden awareness within their organizations. I’m forwarding your post to them immediately.
You can thank Mike Chapman for letting me know about your blog!
Hi Shannon-
Welcome to the blogosphere!
I disagree that “ALL your donors are online” – especially that all donors are on facebook. Just because social networking platforms are seeing growing participation from older segments, does not = everyone using those platforms. Further, even if members of your organization’s community were using facebook, that doesn’t automatically mean they want to interact with your organization, let alone donate, within that space. I’d caution away from that idea that setting up camp on facebook is a panacea.
I’ve also worked for and with numerous foundations who take their due diligence and equal opportunity grant making practices very seriously – they would not be setting up facebook profiles to be swayed into selective grantmaking.
Lastly, I posted recently about the context around Causes’ numbers and have that post here:
http://amysampleward.org/2010/01/29/the-other-side-of-the-figures-causes-reaches-20-million-in-donations/
Thanks for sharing and starting these conversations!
I just sent this EXCELLENT piece to a client in hopes of convincing them to thoughtfully engage across social media platforms.
Thanks!
Donna – Thank you for the comment, and glad it was a useful resource!
Amy – Particularly when you look at the oldest segment, they are not all there yet, but they sure are getting there quickly. The new stats about 63-75 year olds surprised me, and that is happening so quickly. They may not want to give in the space, as you suggested, and in my mind that is ok. But we should certainly be TRYING to interact with, no? Based on the idea that the more forms of communication you reach them with the more likely a gift is. I don’t mean to suggest that Facebook will solve all your funding problems – IT WILL NOT and success takes time! But, I don’t think you will fare well or possibly even survive in the future, which is coming fast, if you don’t.
Re: foundations, absolutely agree with you there. Not all traditional foundations will be reachable and certainly unwilling to be your fb friend. But many smaller, especially local community based foundations where a lot of NP funding comes from, will. So many of those grants are very relationship based. What I think is most likely is that eventually you will be able to connect socially with many foundation grant officers with stricter policies, but only on LinkedIn. And even if it is subtle, that connection can influence their decision. It’s kind of like the way that the very act of a site visit strongly improves your chances of funding because of the relationship.
Re: Causes, totally agree with your post. It’s not to scale yet, but it is getting there. The app could use some improvements as I see it, but I’m so encouraged by its growth!
Thanks again for your thoughts, always love hearing your ideas. NPs reading this, if you are not following Amy, you should
Thanks for your ideas, Shannon. As far as foundations go, at least in my personal experience from the specific foundations I’ve worked in and with…they are on facebook, on twitter, online – they are there to connect and learn and share. But, they are NOT there to “friend” a nonprofit and then fund them. It goes against the idea of even conducting due diligence and it certainly contradicts equal opportunity grantmaking (a strategy designed specifically not to exclude funding from those who haven’t yet gained the funding/capacity/experience to go out and “friend” the program officer on facebook).
I think you’re very right, though, that organizations need to incorporate social media into the way they operate if they want to continue connecting with and growing their communities (both of supporters and those they serve).
Thanks!
I love this blog post and all the comments! All very interesting points. I think it all comes down to this: there many changes taking place in how people communicate with organizations/companies and ultimately nonprofits have to grow and adapt to those changes in the environment in order to keep up with the ways of the world and stay current in the minds of their donors and potential donors. A social media presence may or may not have an immediate pay-off for a nonprofit but sooner or later everyone will find their niche and figure out a plan that works well for their specific goals and objectives.
I think the main point here is to reach out and connect to more people and to increase our network of influence. Nobody can argue that all ages of people are not flocking to social media in record numbers. Whether they are all there already hardly matters since they are all headed that way and will get there in time.
As was previously mentioned, social media in itself is not a panacea, rather (originally from “Socialnomics”) “This revoloution [change in communication channels] is being driven by people and enabled by social media.” The org. looking for funding is still responsible for running an efficient and productive ship, and earning the respect and results that deserve funds/grants. Social media is an exponentially more effective way of broadcasting your message to a larger pool of interested people. If you choose not to use it as a tool in your fund-raising tool-box it’s your fault for not being innovative enough and getting left behind other more agile organizations.
You have stated so well, what I try to express on a daily basis to local nonprifit organizations. I will be posting a link to your article on my Together We Flourish fan page. Thank you!
Wow, all these comments are so exciting!
Brenna – Exactly. A Fan Page is the new website. Eventually everyone will have one.
Michael – Absolutely. If your program sucks, people will see through it. If your NP is lousy but you do well with social media it won’t be sustainable. A nonprofit WILL fail if it fails to use social media IMHO, but if the program/org is as you said “unworthy” social media won’t save it either.
Thank you Susan! I’m honored
I’ve done a lot of work with nonprofits, and I agree that they need to embrace social media. But I don’t think they need to do so for the reasons you outline.
To point 1: yes, it’s important to use social media tools, but you need to use them not because people are there, but because a) social media is one of the few places you can still, consistently and across a broad demographic landscape, get people’s attention, and b) these tools provide a means of telling your story, reinforcing your value proposition and engaging more and more people.
I agree with point 2 in that corporations are using their corporate responsibility dollars to gain positive sentiment, for the same reasons that I outlined above – that’s where the eyeballs and attention are. But nonprofits are struggling because they raise too many small gifts from too many new donors, and they don’t build relationships very well (higher ed and other subsectors such as the arts less so). By raising gifts through a weak association with a cause, as you see with these corporate cause-marketing efforts doesn’t create a highly-committed donor for life. These are distractions, and should be treated accordingly – if you spend time and resources on them, it should be very little time and almost no resources.
To your point 3, and this point doesn’t come from social media per se: I’ve seen this statistic over and over again, and there is some sort of implication there that somehow online giving is a means of giving that creates new money. There is little evidence (except that offered by the vendors of online giving systems) that this is anything but what has been true in the for-profit world – it’s easier and less hassle to give on line.
I most certainly commend your counsel for nonprofits to get social media savvy – in my experience, though, the value is much different than what you are describing.
Cheers,
Kevin
Hi Kevin,
You raise some interesting points, but of course I beg to differ or it wouldn’t be a good conversation right?
On point 1, they go hand in hand. You couldn’t get their attention if they weren’t already living in the space. But I find that the real value is not necessarily in the broadness of the demographics, but in our ability to narrowly target like minded people where there are a large number of people.
On point 2, you are right that many of these micro donations are fleeting. And they will continue to be so. But, and this is only a personal prediction not backed up by research, I suspect that we are at the entrance of a new paradigm of giving (long-term, not 2010 ok?) where most individual donations are fleeting. Future philanthropists interact with the world differently than existing, older life long committed donors. I believe that giving is more impulsive with Gen Xers and Millenials. So again, the sector must adapt. I don’t mean to suggest that nonprofits should in any way abandon traditional funding streams. It’s a transition of mindset, including social media in all your fundraising efforts. Instead of spending very little time and effort on these new donors because they won’t be life-long, realize and accept that and instead focus on replicating and building that effect of a groundswell of support from a set of supporters that may be different each time. Swim with the current, not against it.
As for point 3, in both a pre and post social media world, nonprofits have had to grapple with the question does building one funding stream take away from another. For example, if your organization has never thrown a sponsored gala before, when you do does it deplete your corporate giving pot? Sometimes yes, and sometimes no usually dependent on thoughtful execution, but with more effort usually comes higher overall returns. Similarly, I believe that there is *some* new money online, largely because nonprofits are able to more effectively and efficiently communicate with younger generations of donors who would not respond any other way. Is the 75 year old that gives on Causes a new donor? I would venture to guess no. But as you said, people spend money online because it’s easier. And if I have made his life easier, then I have added something to the relationship. So we need to think about how an online gift means something different across age demos.
Very provocative! Thank you for adding to the discussion. Comebacks welcome
Cheers,
Shannon
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Another challenge is that non-profits need to be able to explore multiple distribution channels, like custom toolbars.
For example, Conduit – maker of a custom toolbar platform – has a special contest called Conduit Gives in which nonprofits can fundraise – at no cost – via custom conduit commmunity toolbars. This is a unique social media channel that can benefit nonprofits greatly and keep their brand on their supporters browsers, regardless of what site they are on.
Great idea Avi! Whether online or off, the key is diversified funding streams.
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Thought provoking post. We at the National Breast Cancer Foundation (www.nbcf.org), have almost been forced to actively engage in social media and other digital strategies. It’s no secret that breast cancer is an over crowded “market sector” in the non profit world. Not only have we seen a significant growth in our online donations, but we have also seen a transition in the breast cancer conversation going virtual than physical. Access to real stories, the ability to connect with other survivors across the internet and create connections has prompted this move. We would be absolutely foolish to not engage in social media. Not only has social media increased revenue for us, it has opened new channels for content distribution and advocacy.
Kevin, sorry for the delayed response… just saw your comment. I am just so happy to hear stories like yours… real nonprofits that are benefitting from use of social media!