Raise More and Reach More With Social Media Fundraising
5.5 min to read ✭ In this blog, you'll learn how to use social media effectively to reach more potential donors and raise more money for your cause.
Raise More and Reach More With Social Media Fundraising
Social Media Is Crucial for Fundraising
Did you know that 4.62 billion people use social media every day and spend 20% of smartphone users spend more than four and a half hours per weekday on their phones? Your target audience is on social media and there are billions of seconds available to catch the attention of your next new donor in your social media fundraising strategy.
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For example, Meta has 2.94 billion monthly active users, and 1.96 billion users visit the platform daily. This means that billions of users visit at least one of Facebook’s main platforms – which includes, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger. Plus, over 1 billion active users are spending 89 minutes per day watching various TikTok videos, most of them being younger audiences.
According to The Nonprofit Acceleration Report, 46% of nonprofits are “very likely” to use paid social advertising in 2022. Using the fundraising tools established by social media platforms will give your organization a chance to stand out from for-profit brands vying for your viewers’ attention.
Increase Your Reach
Before beginning a social media fundraising campaign, consider a few questions including:
Who is our target audience?
What are our SMART goals?
What type of content does our audience prefer on social media?
What is our one Call to Action (CTA)?
If your audience trends younger toward Gen Z, then video storytelling on TikTok will probably be more beneficial vs. Facebook for older millennials, Gen X and Baby Boomers.
According to DonorBox, 28 percent of all online giving is via a mobile device, and 17 percent of crowdfunding comes from a mobile device. Your audience lives in these social media platforms daily and they’re primed to take action.
Learn More About Utilizing Social Media Effectively!
Build Donor Engagement
Social media fundraising that includes clear CTAs will allow your donors to bring their friends, family and acquaintances to your fundraising campaign.
Social media fundraising offers tools like donate buttons and stickers and repost options that campaign without a monetary overhead from your organization.
According to The Nonprofit Acceleration Report, 20% of nonprofits bring in 50% or more of their revenue online. And, these numbers are now likely to leap exponentially in the coming years. Your audience lives on these social media platforms daily and they’re primed to take action.
High ROI (Return on Investment)
Social media fundraising campaigns that focus on storytelling offer high yields. Stories from those you serve and your volunteers build intrinsic value, raise awareness, and educate potential donors about your organization.
Birthday fundraisers on platforms such as Facebook allow your supporters to add stickers and Donate Now buttons that put the CTA in the hands of the donors.
Lookalike audiences allow your social media advertising dollars to go further by reaching audiences similar to those currently interacting with your organization. Your ads will reach people with similar interests and values.
Recruiting Volunteers
Social media fundraising can also include CTAs that recruit volunteers or people who want to help in more than monetary ways. The 80/20 rule — 80 percent of marketing should build awareness and provide education while only 20 percent should be hard asks—will give space in your campaigns, so it doesn’t seem like an onslaught of messaging repeatedly asking for donations.
Social Media Fundraising Tools
Social media fundraising tools are literally everywhere. Sometimes it’s hard to decide which ones work best and which ones to test. When we find ourselves in that place, we usually look to the platforms themselves. For example, Meta (Facebook & Instagram) and TikTok have tons of tools and ways to automate donations straight from the platform!
Donate Buttons on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok
1. Meta
Organizations looking to use Facebook or Instagram for social media fundraising must first enroll in Meta’s fundraising tools platform. Approval can take 2-3 weeks. (This means sign up now to make the most of your #GivingTuesday campaign!)
Meta also requires organizations to register with Meta Pay to receive donations. The Facebook page admin can add the donate button once Meta Pay is established.
Instagram requires organizations to use a business account to access social media fundraising features. Organizations also need to be enrolled in Facebook’s social media fundraising tool in order to unlock Instagram fundraising functions.
2. TikTok
Organizations become eligible for TikTok social media fundraising features by first starting a TikTok account. Organizations also need to sign up via Tiltify. Once approved on Tiltify, your organization will register and create an up-to-date charity profile on Benevity Causes. TikTok also requires accounts set up Stripe as their method of payment for donations.
3. Facebook Fundraiser
Setting up a Facebook social media fundraiser is only a handful of steps once your organization has registered and gotten verified via Meta. Restarting a fundraiser must be done on a desktop and cannot be done via mobile.
Have your Facebook admin click on the Fundraiser tab in your Facebook account to start the page:
Click Fundraiser on the side panel.
Click Raise Money
Select nonprofit and search for your nonprofit 
Add your fundraiser title, description, and a cover photo and you’re set to create!
4. Live Stream
Going live on your social media platforms is a great way to connect to your audience 1:1. You can show behind-the-scenes work, feature volunteers to tell their stories, and you can answer questions in real time for potential donors.
From a desktop, open your Facebook page and select Live next to Create.
Select if you want to go live right then or if you want to schedule a live for later.
Continue to complete the description and headline about your live.
Select Go Live at the bottom.
Instagram Fundraiser
Instagram social media fundraisers are active for 30 days and will be visible in your organization’s bio.
- Open Instagram and tap the + button to create new content.
- Upload your image and tap Next.
- Crop and filter your image and tap Next.
- Tap Add Fundraiser, which will take you to a page to complete your social media fundraiser details.
- Click done! Get to sharing your post.
Hashtags
Hashtags are essential when boosting social media fundraising posts. #GivingTuesday is the next big event but also look for relevant hashtags to your nonprofit service area. For organizations that serve animals, #caturday could be appropriate.
Look up what hashtags are trending and see if any apply to your social media fundraiser. Jumping on trending hashtags will improve your content’s algorithm status.
Many hashtag research tools exist to assist in narrowing down the best options for your organization.
Virtual Fundraising Events
Not all donors can sneak away for an evening fundraising gala, but offering virtual fundraising events as part of your social media fundraising is a great way to continue to build your network of donors and meet them where they are.
Events like Earth Day offer an excellent opportunity for volunteers to showcase their efforts in litter cleanup with social media posts linking to a fundraiser for a sustainability cause.
Paid Social Ads
Facebook Ads
Running Facebook Ads in tandem with a fundraising campaign maximizes your donation results. Funraising.com’s 2020 giving report showed that 40 percent of donors used Facebook to donate. Eighty-eight percent of those donors said they would give via Facebook again.
Of the $1.2 million Community Boost has managed in Facebook, and Instagram ad spends for clients, there is an average of 3.7x return on investment.
Instagram Ads
Instagram’s focus on Reels and more video content over photos has made their algorithm more competitive than ever to stand out to your potential donors. Instagram ads have the potential to reach almost 850 million users.
Users ages 18-34 are likelier to be on Instagram, according to Hootsuite
Use of Instagram stories also generates a quarter of the platform’s ad revenue. Stories are a great place to add fundraising stickers and double down on your social media fundraising efforts.
Youtube Ads
Social media users are 4x more likely to use YouTube to look up information about a brand or service.
Remarketing tools allow a nonprofit to create more than 30,000 remarketing audiences.
Learn How to Remarket to Audiences
LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn may not be the most popular social media fundraising tool, but 60 percent of the platform’s users are between the ages of 25 and 34 years old, according to Hootsuite.
Community Boosts’ work with Toastmasters District 44 garnered 53 leads within the first month of advertising on LinkedIn.
TikTok Ads
TikTok has more than 1 billion monthly active users, according to Sprout Social. Forty-three percent of those users are between the ages of 10-29.
Sixty-two percent of users reported finding ads inspiring, meaning your audience is warmed up for your ask.
