Presented in May 2016 at a one-day course at Seattle University for professionals working in the nonprofit industry. Shares a strategy to leverage the social media channel in an integrated channel approach to ignite cause awareness and giving campaigns.

1. Social Media and Fundraising
May 2016 | Erica Klinger, Director of Marketing

2. Social media is “Word of Mouth” marketing
and not a direct response channel.
Focus on the SHARE, not the donation.

3. Can you use social media to
ignite fundraising? Yes!

4. Start with a plan

5. Create clear goals for the channel
Increase AWARENESS with 100 post shares
Increase ENGAGEMENTwith 100 hashtag mentions
Encourage referrals through POST-DONATION sharing

6. Tactics to increase AWARENESS
• Create branded sharing images (memes)
• Pay to boost your posts
• Build an influencer email list (media, ambassadors, partners)
• Email influencers example messages

7. Tactics to increase ENGAGEMENT
• Create videos, blog posts and infographics
• Tag partners in your post
• Moderate and reply quickly to comments
• Encourage people to share with a promotion

8. Tactics to encourage REFERRALS
• Create urgency and share your fundraising goal
• Link back to your donation page – always!
• Promote matching funds to incentivize donors
• Add a social sharing widget on the confirmation page

9. Identify your target audiences
and define key messages

10. Some GOOD content examples.

11. SOCIAL MEDIA MATURITY. Create a scaleable and realistic plan. Source: Beth Kanter

12. Create “sharable”
content

13. Content changes along a donor journey
(infographics, articles, celebrity endorsements, photos, quizzes)
Donate

14. TOP CONTENT IS SIMILAR FOR ALL GENERATIONS. Blog articles, images, comments, and eBooks. Source: moz.com

15. Think about content people will share
Surprise people
(interesting images & facts)

16. #GIVING TUESDAY – VIRTUAL REALITY. Crowdrise created an app to watch a Giving Tower grow taller as people from
around the world donated to their favorite causes. You could even compare the giving to famous tall buildings in the U.S.

17. TOMS ONE DAY WITHOUT SHOES - INSTAGRAM. For each photo posted of bare feet, TOMS will give a pair of shoes to
a child in need. Millions of people around the world spent the entire day barefoot and tagged their friends to do the same.

18. ONE GIRL AUSTRALIA – DO IT IN A DRESS. Peer to Peer campaign where the donor buys a dress, builds a network of
education and women supporters to send girls in Africa to school. Uses fundraising platform CauseVox.

19. Leverage a Trend
(viral videos, celebrity
endorsements, zombies, etc.)

20. RELATE RECENT NEWS TO YOUR CAMPAIGN. Raise awareness about inspiring philanthropists and causes they support.

21. ALS ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE: An exceptional example of viral social media content. It leveraged the “feel good” factor and
is still going on - with over $115m raised since 2014.

22. GIVEBIG PSA VIDEO. Sounders FC Captain Brad Evans voices his GiveBIG support with Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
“Downtown” soundtrack. Over 31,000 views, a 23% increase compared to 2015

23. Inspire People
(stunning photos or quotes)

24. PICTURES SPEAK A THOUSAND WORDS
Half of social network site users share news stories, images or videos, and nearly as many (46%) have discussed a news issue or event.

25. CURATION OF 51 BEAUTIFUL LITERATURE QUOTES. This blog post had over 9m views and over 1.4m shares. Most
people have favorite books and quotes.

26. COMPELLING IMAGES AND STORYTELLING. Charity: Water does storytelling through both video, written text and
curated images. They also dedicated an entire page of their website to heart-warming, positive-outcome stories.

27. Don’t be afraid to ask

28. Start a conversation
“What’s your
favorite kind of
Girl Scout
Cookie?”

29. Seth Godin, author
of “All Marketers
are Liars”
Position your
organization as
a valued
supplier.

30. Show heart and
urgency

31. Use social media to tell
your story and to thank donors

32. SHOW HOW MUCH YOU CARE. Share your expertise, events, news and passion for your cause. This one post had 418
likes, 47 shares and 38 comments.

34. A ticker countdown
builds urgency

35. Leaderboards & incentives build excitement

37. Leverage brand ambassadors
Build a list of people that love your brand and will share
your content in their social networks.
• Employees
• Volunteers
• Board
• Family
• Friends
• Media and bloggers
• Celebrities

38. Listen to the science

39. Analyze data to
optimize your campaign

40. Watch trends
in donations

41. Check your
shares

42. Review conversion
channels

43. Compare your
email click rate

44. A quick review…

45. Set your goals for
social media

46. Make storytelling fun
& interesting
Fun

47. Learn from your failures
$%(L@#!

48. Review analytics
frequently

49. Keep it simple.

50. Resources
• crowdrise.com/givingtower – #givingtuesday campaign
• alsa.org/fight-als/ice-bucket-challenge.html – ALS Campaign
• toms.com/one-day-without-shoes – Global health & Education
• doitinadress.com/ - Education Campaign
• sethgodin.com – Author and Blogger
• pewinternet.org - Pew Research Center 2015
• moz.com – SEO and Search Software
• givebig.seattlefoundation.org – Tableau dashboard

51. Questions?