Social Media for Nonprofits: How to use Social Media to Broaden Your Charitable Impact

This is an era of a rapidly developing digital age, where people are immensely relying upon many social media channels and networks to connect and broaden their reach. According to a study, In the US, about 7 in 10 Americans use some form of a social network. This fact can be considered by the many nonprofits to use it to their advancement, as raising money and mobilizing the crowds for a cause is all about broadening their reach and connecting with the right audience. Social media provides an immense opportunity for such organizations to reach and build a meaningful connection with their supporters and influencers to succeed at large.

And as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, also known as Mahatma Gandhi, an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and freedom fighter, truly said "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others."

Therefore, to deploy oneself in service of others and help them out of their misery, here is a list of ideas to use social media to broaden the charitable impact of a nonprofit organization and help others to help others.

Create a Campaign Plan:

To get going an effective fundraising campaign it is quintessential to prepare an all-encompassing and effective plan along with a team. As it will be very helpful to get things rolling. For instance, charity like water developed a clear strategy and timeline beforehand to make a clear pathway which helped them to collect a sum of $1.8 million during the campaign where all they did was to ask people born in the month of November to donate a certain amount in lieu of gifts. There are various online tools which can be helpful while formulating and executing the strategy

Decide Which Social Platforms Are the Most Relevant:

It is strongly suggested to look for the most relevant social media platforms before launching a fundraising campaign, as it can be helpful to evaluate and check the effectiveness of the campaign. To begin with, the identification procedure can be initiated to look for the most suited and targeted audience for reaching out to them. For the same purpose, the help of various online analytical tools can be deployed to check and see how the content is doing with different demographics and to determine where it will be most fruitful to invest the time and efforts.

For instance, if the younger audience (ages 18 – 24) is the targeted audience and they are a need to be approached, 78 percent of this age group can be found at Snapchat, and 71 of them can be found to be using Instagram, in contrast to that if there's a need to reach more universal audience Facebook and YouTube can help get that.

Reach Out to Influencers:

Sometimes, especially as a smaller organization, it can be difficult to get the word out about your fundraising campaign. This is where social media influencers can help. At the initial stage or even after building a foothold as a nonprofit organization it can sometimes become challenging to spread out the word and achieve the expected overwhelming response from the masses. This is where social media influencers can help. These Influencers are typically individuals with an enormous base of social media followers and are respected and highly sought after in their field or industry. By using various analytical tools and methods, the influencers who are relevant to the cause or the ones who are willing to help can be reached out and asked to promote the campaign.

For example, in 2010, Leigh Durst organized a fundraiser at South by Southwest for victims of Japan's earthquake and successfully engaged influencers to get over $125,000 in donations over a short period of time. Another successful example of social media optimization can be found through We Charity. The organization was founded by Craig Kielburger along with his brother Marc Kielburger, and provides a holistic development model called WE Villages, helping to lift more than one million people out of poverty in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. WE Charity uses social media influencers to attain a global reach.