Nonprofits embracing social media for fund raising

Nonprofits understand the importance of building quality, lasting relationships for maintaining a base of supporters to embrace their many causes and fundraising campaigns. Recent articles suggest that nonprofits have been quick to realize the upside potential for social media sites that can strengthen the connection with existing supporters and also attract new followers. By utilizing social media to promote brand awareness, nonprofits are able to build quality relationships by keeping followers engaged with frequent updates, and “late-breaking news”, distributed via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs, and more.

A recent article by Jay Pateakos, Herald News Staff Reporter, offered this perspective:

"From blogging to “tweeting” to Facebooking, a soon-to-be-released University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research study on America’s largest charities and their experience with social media shows an overwhelming increase in its use during the past two years, a trend that has begun to emerge in local charities and nonprofits.

The study, conducted by CMR Director Nora Ganim Barnes and marketing consultant Eric Mattson, found 89 percent of charitable and nonprofit organizations are using some form of social media: blogs, Facebook, Twitter and others. Fifty-seven percent reported activity in blogging.

Comparing the 2007 and 2008 data, it becomes clear that there has been significant improvement as we look at the implementation of the most popular tool, blogging. For volunteers/donors looking to have a conversation online about particular aspects of a charity’s mission, this increased interaction through comments can be significant.”

CMR Director Nora Ganim Barnes went on to say, "Social media is an important part of the marketing strategy for U.S. charities and nonprofits. They are outpacing businesses and even academic institutions in their familiarity, use and monitoring activity. These organizations have found a new and exciting way to win the hearts, and maybe the dollars, of potential donors.”

“Twitter helps to push information out to people faster and more conveniently than any other medium. It helps us to stay in touch with our community in an easy and convenient way,” said Jim Rattray, vice president of Marketing and Public Affairs for Southcoast Health System, who used snow cancellations as another example of Twitter’s best use.

“Facebook allows for more information and allows people to come together in the same place, another way to stay connected to people and provide information on resources and services that is convenient and efficient.”

“People are looking for ways to get news quickly, and with Twitter and Facebook, it allows us to bring this information to people in real time,” said Rattray. “It’s a much better consumer experience where you get what you want when you want it and you decide if you want to join.”

United Way of Greater New Bedford Director of Marketing Caroline Cuccia said her nonprofit created a Facebook page last year that has grown to more than 360 members. She hopes to continue improving the page and getting into more social media as time and staffing allow. “It’s a way for people to get information on our organization, look at pictures and make donations."

- June 16, 2009, "Study: Nonprofits flocking to social media" by Jay Pateakos

Of all the social media sites, Twitter is the one that is truly "collaborative" in real time, where people communicate via microblogging, much like instant messaging, but you can be connected with hundreds of people at the same time and share information via "tweets" with everyone who follows you. Think of a chat room that runs 24 X 7, never shuts down, and you can come and go as you please. Twitter is like a giant cocktail party where if you hear an interesting conversation, you can "listen in", and add a comment if you like.

Leena Rao of TechCrunch offered this insight in a recent article:

"Twitter, the current darling of the social media world, is increasingly being used by charities. In addition to building awareness, Twitter has potential to raise charitable contributions. One of the more successful initiatives launched in the Twittosphere was February's global Twestival, which raised over $250,000 for charity:water, a non-profit organization devoted to bringing clean drinking water to developing nations. The volunteer-run organization held events to bring Twitter communities in nearly 200 cities together. 250K sounds like an awful lot of dough to raise over the microblogging network, but this amount fell way below Twestival's goal of $1 million.

Still, Twitter's viral, real-time nature allows for a fast (and relatively low-cost) way to raise funds. Tweetsgiving, another Twitter-based charitable initiative raised over $10,000 in just 48 hours in November of 2008 to fund a new classroom for a school in Tanzania. Beth Kantor reports that she was able to raise over $3000 via Twitter in just 90 minutes.

Twollars and Tweet4Good also offer interesting ways for non-profits to raise money over Twitter. But it's pretty clear that there are many compelling ways to use Twitter's viral nature as a valuable fundraising tool for charities. This isn't to suggest that Twitter will replace conventional ways of fundraising, but it provides a low-cost, yet engaging way to diversify a charity's fundraising efforts. And in this economy, diversification is too important to ignore.

- July 5, 2009, "Tweetraising: The Potential for Charities on Twitter (TechCrunch)" - by Leena Rao

July's Social Media Club - Richmond event focus was Social Media for Non-Profit Organizations and featured Boston's Gradon Tripp. Gradon is the founder of Social Media 4 Social Change (www.sm4sc.com). The premise of SM4SC is simple — to take all the connections made through social media, and put them together to host first-class fundraising events happen “in real life”. SM4SC’s fundraisers benefit local charities in cities around the United States. Gradon Tripp is a recognized leader in the area of leveraging social media for charitable causes. He writes about social media and life at GradonTripp.com; he also speaks about the role social media plays in helping non-profit organizations raise awareness.

To view Examiner article with highlights of Gradon's talk on charitable cause fundraising, click here.

- Daulton West, Jr. , aka ”DWestJr” on Twitter