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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  • There is a lot of talk and advice given online about how social media can help non-profits and I am a real believer that these tools are especially important for this sector. It is good that you have given some examples here though to really show what this means in fundraising terms as a result of well executed social media campaigns. These figures really highlight the ever mentioned 'power' of the internet. I think you are right in pointing out that these channels make the work non-profits are doing much easier to demonstrate to supporters as well as crucially making it far easier for donors to give. It should also make it easier for orgs to then clearly demonstrate to donors how their money has actually helped. Taking the example you give here, Epic Change could integrate their social media channels by pointing out a video on YouTube to the twitter donors which could directly show them footage of the classroom they helped create being constructed and used, in turn enhancing supporter 'morale'.

    Seems to me, good use of social media is all about making your point clearer to audiences, creating more transparency and making it easier for potential supporters to participate.
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