How Can Social Media Help My Nonprofit Organization?

by Laura Lake on January 11, 2010

This is a ques­tion I hear a lot, so I spent some time writ­ing an arti­cle on About.com regard­ing the ben­e­fits that social media offers to non­profit orga­ni­za­tion. I wanted to expand on that arti­cle by shar­ing how social media has proven suc­cess­ful for non­profit orga­ni­za­tions by using spe­cific sta­tis­tics. If you are a non­profit orga­ni­za­tion and you are debat­ing the use of social media, I think the this post will help you in your deci­sion. It will also help if you need some­thing to present to your board mem­bers on the valid­ity of social media when it comes non­profit organizations.

A report in Con­vio, The Wired Wealthy, pub­lished in March of 2008 showed that 2007 online giv­ing for non­profit orga­ni­za­tions in the United States reached 10 bil­lion, this was a 52% increase over the pre­vi­ous year 2006.

Why the increase?

It is shown that 51% of wealthy don­ers actu­ally pre­fer to give online.

These donors can be found in var­i­ous venues of social media. Con­sider the fol­low­ing statistics:

  • 52% use YouTube
  • 14% use Myspace
  • 12% use Flickr
  • 9% use Facebook

If that’s not enough con­vince you, per­haps nam­ing a few of the non­profit orga­ni­za­tions that uti­lize social media might help. A few include:

  • Amer­i­can Red Cross
  • National Wildlife Federation
  • The Humane Society
  • Green­Peace
  • Amer­i­can Can­cer Society

Does that help? Hmmmm, ok want proof it works?

Epic Change used Twit­ter to raise over $11,000 in just 48 hours. This money was raised to build a class­room in Tanzania.

Think about that — $11,000 in just 48 hours!

Over 98% of those who donated had never donated to Epic Change before.

Another suc­cess story is the 12for12k Tweet-a-Thon cam­paign that also used Twit­ter to raise funds. This cam­paign started by Scott Stratten,raised $13,000 in 12 hours. This money was raised to com­bat child hunger in the United States and obvi­ously it works — $13,000 in 12 hours.

Would you like to know why social media worked for them in attract­ing new donors — after all isn’t that what you want?

It worked because:

  • There was a clear and achiev­able goal that was set and then broadcast
  • There was an urgency that was cre­ated by hav­ing a short deadline
  • They were able to lever­age exist­ing networks
  • They made giv­ing easy and they made it clear what they planned to do with the money
  • They rec­og­nized top donors that gave.

If you are a non­profit who still doesn’t think it will work for your orga­ni­za­tion, then there is not much I can do for you. I’ve given you sta­tis­tics, ref­er­ences of those that are doing it suc­cess­fully and proof that it works.

If you are a non­profit orga­ni­za­tion that wants to get started in social media, but you are not sure where to start I under­stand and I can help. I can help you cre­ate a social media pol­icy as well as a strat­egy that can help you in see­ing suc­cess in social media mar­ket­ing. Feel free to con­tact me to dis­cuss these options — I’m always happy to help.

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