2. How this webinar works
• A link to the slides and a recording will be sent
after the webinar
• If you’d like to ask a question during the webinar,
you can type it in the box on the right side of your
screen
• Use the hashtag #fgwebinar to tweet about this
webinar
4. Online Fundraising Solutions
Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Pages
and Event Registrations Online Direct Donations
Personal Support for your nonprofit, donors, and fundraisers
Easy, tested, and secure transaction processes for the donor
5. About the presenters
Ehren Foss Vanessa Swesnik
@ehrenfoss @vswesnik
ehren@helpattack.com vanessa@helpattack.com
@helpattack
7. Social Media Fundraising
In this webinar we will discuss social media fundraising
and best practices for approaching, building, and
maintaining support online.
@helpattack
8. Topics we will cover
• How is social media fundraising different from online
fundraising or email? How is it the same?
• Case studies and best practices: What goals are
realistic, and what effort is needed?
• How can smaller organizations find success?
@helpattack
9. Social Media vs. Email
• People share - you can forward a fundraising email,
but do you?
• Friends asking friends- peer to peer fundraising
• Causes, Crowdrise, CauseVox, FirstGiving, Greater
Giving, HelpAttack!, etc
NOTE: it's up to you to grow a relationship with those
donors outside of the particular tool they are using.
@helpattack
10. Social Media vs. Email
Why is sharing
important? Response
and conversion rates.
Here are some average
response rates.
from Sarah Durham of Big Duck's presentation
http://www.slideshare.net/SM4nonprofits/sarah-durham-bigduck-social-
media-for-nonprofit-ceos Check it out!
@helpattack
11. Social Media vs. Email
Sharing may boost response rates. Take a FreeArtsNYC
HelpAttack! ampaign for example:
Unique Visitors 291/1,700 or 28x better than
17% email
FreeArtsNYC had around
1,200 Facebook fans and Pledges 26/1,700 or 19x better than
around 500 Twitter followers 1.5% email
for a total of around
1,700 in their social media
audience.
@helpattack
12. Social Media vs. Email
Other differences:
Instant: respond to the news with social media Kony 2012
Dialogue: Komen and Planned Parenthood
It's...social: see and interact with actual people
"Social media is a space
where the individual
reigns, relationships are
required, and
conversations are public."
@helpattack
13. Social Media and Email:
The Similarities
• Grown the same
• starts with zero people
• takes time and effort
• Cost resources at first
• more than donations produced
• Worth it!
Where would you be without your email list today?
@helpattack
14. Social Media and Email:
The Similarities
Return on Investment (ROI)
Like email, the ROI of social media should be measured
as a long term investment with compounding growth,
rather than a short term balance sheet.
@helpattack
15. Social Media and Email:
The Similarities
• Audience is crucial
o How big?
o Who are they, and what do they care about?
• Experiment, test, and improve
• Move donors up engagement ladder People give to
• "house file" is crucial faces and
heartbeats, not
• People give because: statistics!
o People they know give
o There's an immediate need
o They are asked
@helpattack
16. Social Media and Email:
The Similarities
• Not everybody sees each message.
• Not everybody responds.
o Conversion rate
• Each step in a process reduces response.
o Conversion funnel
o 10% x 10% x 10% = 0.1%! (need 1,000 people to
start)
• Part of every community is dead weight.
o Abandoned accounts, bots, spam folders..
@helpattack
17. Best Practices in Social
Media Fundraising
• set realistic goals
• grow your presence
• reward participation
• leverage a special event, celebrity
ambassadors, corporate sponsors
• thank donors
@helpattack
18. What are realistic goals?
• Get 10 new donors*
• Learn who they are
• Thank them personally
• Stay in touch with them
Ten donors giving $25 per
month all year is an extra
$3,000. Not bad!
@helpattack
19. What time and effort is
needed?
About* 6 hours of work over 6 weeks.
• 1 hour to brainstorm the right kind of campaign for your cause, and the
supporters you want to reach
• 1 hour to invite other stakeholders
• 1 hour to tell partners or super-supporters and ask them to help spread the
word
• 30 minutes to write a blog post
• 30 minutes to include in an email to your list
• 2 hours of social media monitoring
• 1 hour to download reports and upload into your supporter database
*can vary immensely depending on you and your organization
@helpattack
20. What should I expect?
2,500 followers ≈ 5-10 donors
How do you figure?
If you have around 2,500 followers,
you’ll probably get 25 hits to the
page to which you're linking, and five
or ten people finish the action
(donate, like, etc.)
@helpattack
21. Leverage a special event
• Earth Day, Valentines Day, event
• …or create one! #oceangiving
@helpattack
23. Reward Participation
• Reward participation
• “Like” for a chance to
win…
• Submit a picture for a
chance to win…
• Nonmonetary gifts
(feature your picture,
story, idea, etc)
@helpattack
24. Grow Your Presence
• Borrow an audience
• Reach out to 10 people
with 500 followers
• Volunteers, other
nonprofits, media, activists
@helpattack
25. Grow Your Presence
• Ads on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin
• Advertise on Google, Bing
• Special programs (Google Grants,
YouTube nonprofit program, Hope140) for
nonprofits
@helpattack
26. Case Study: Facebook Ads
Beth Kanter and AXIS Dance Company
http://www.bethkanter.org/facebook-ads/, check it out! @helpattack
27. Case Study: Facebook Ads
Who: AXIS Dance Company and Beth Kanter
Goal: get local likes
Method: 2 kinds, one general and one specific
Cost: $5/day for the general, $8/day for the specific
and decided to go for pay/click because we wanted to
them to click through to our AXIS Facebook page and
‘Like’ us on Facebook
http://www.bethkanter.org/facebook-ads/, check it out! @helpattack
28. Case Study: Facebook Ads
Results:
• 24 hours
• 67 Page Views
• 28 Unique Page Views
• 17 new likes
• 10 of those due to the ad
http://www.bethkanter.org/facebook-ads/, check it out!
@helpattack
30. What’s a free and easy way
to keep your donors happy?
Thank supporters/donors right away on social media.
It's free and powerful.
@helpattack
31. Thanking Donors: Best Practices
• provide inspiring stories about what donors are
accomplishing with their giving
• be personal
• be specific
For more ideas visit: http://www.futurefundraisingnow.com/
@helpattack
34. Best Practices for Flickr,
Tumblr, Pinterest
Find your "inner Picasso”
from Noland Hoshino guest post on John Haydon's blog, check it out!
http://www.johnhaydon.com/2012/02/not-pin-on-pinterest/ @helpattack
http://pinterest.com/nolandhoshino/
35. Best Practices for Flickr,
Tumblr, Pinterest
What NOT to post
• "Company logos
• Long paragraphs
• Tweets from Twitter
• Small images
• Enormously long Infographics. Instead, cut out sections
that’s interesting
• Anything that violates Pinterest’s terms of agreement
@helpattack
36. Small to Medium Size
Nonprofits
Find your ideal supporters
• Friend them or Follow them
• They will likely follow back if you engage them
with questions or content
• Personalize the account with a picture, a voice
and even a brief bio of the person posting
• Use tools like HootSuite
@helpattack
37. Smallness as an
Advantage
• You can really know your
supporters
• Grow the right audience
• Easier to ask them for things
Try this:
Choose a random hundred and look at their
profiles. How did they find you? Who are they?
Why are they following you? What value can you
provide?
@helpattack
39. Connect with us in our
Social Community!
Facebook: facebook.com/firstgiving
Twitter: twitter.com/firstgiving
FirstGiving Insights blog:
http://insights.firstgiving.com
Online Fundraising blog:
http://blog.firstgiving.com
FirstGiving for Runners blog:
http://runners.firstgiving.com
40. Thank you!
Interested in learning more about FirstGiving?
Contact: Amber Williams
Email: Amber.williams@firstgiving.com
Telephone: 617-963-5123
Interested in learning more about HelpAttack?
Contact: Vanessa Swesnik
Email: vanessa@helpattack.com
Twitter: @vswesnik @helpattack
