9 Tips for More Successful Fundraising on Social Media

When hosting a fundraiser, there are many parts that go into the planning process to make it a success. If you’re hosting a fundraiser with Chipotle, we handle most of the execution to make it easy on our partners, but we rely on you to promote your event with friends, family, and community members to get the best results possible using assets that we provide. For any fundraising event, advertising your fundraiser can make a huge difference in your overall fundraiser results, and social media is an important fundraising awareness tool. If you’re wondering how you can use social media to have a stronger fundraiser, we have a list to help you get started. 

9 Tips for More Successful Social Media Fundraising

1. Choose Social Platforms: If you’re familiar with social media, you know that each platform is different in the way that information is shared. Some options for social media platforms that you can use include Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, YouTube, Pinterest, and Nextdoor. While all platforms serve their purpose, some may be a better fit for your organization. Here’s some information on a few individual platforms and how to use them as a fundraising tool.
2. Facebook: This is a platform that has been around for a long time and is used by all ages. Facebook is great for sharing information with friends, creating and promoting events, and sharing messages with longer text. You can also share photos and post links to Facebook easily.
3. Twitter: Twitter is a platform for shorter messages. You can share photos in your tweet, but are limited to 280 characters per tweet. This is a great place for quick updates to your followers.
4. Instagram: As a platform that focuses on images first, it’s the perfect place to share impactful and compelling images. Instagram has a maximum character limit of 2,200 characters per caption, so you can fit more content into the caption to accompany the image. Another great feature of Instagram is stories, which are photos or videos that you can share on your account that will vanish after 24 hours. Learn more about promoting your fundraiser on Instagram here.
5. LinkedIn: This is a professional platform that can connect you with people interested in giving to your cause. For large events or giving campaigns, encourage your organization members to share details to their connections on LinkedIn.
6. Nextdoor: A neighborhood app that allows communities to come together and greet newcomers, exchange recommendations, and read the latest local news. It’s helpful for community fundraisers because you can share details with those in your local community and build neighborhood support.
7. Create Materials: After you choose the best social media fundraising platforms for your organization, next you will need online materials to start sharing information. Take quality photos and consider working with a graphic designer to create additional content. Online materials can include photos, videos and infographics. For help on what sizes images need to be on each social media platform, check out this cheat sheet. If you’re hosting your fundraiser with Chipotle, we provide a variety of templates to make it easy, but having additional personalized videos and photos is always a nice touch for your supporters.
8. Customize Messages & Tell Your Story: Now that you have chosen your platforms and have online photos and materials to share, you need text to accompany each photo! This is a great opportunity to tell your organization’s story and why your audience should support you and your fundraiser. Get creative and have fun with this. Remember, for each platform you will need different copy based on character limits. For more information and insights on the ideal length of every social media post, click here.
9. Create a Call to Action: Make sure you have posts with a clear call to action – to either donate money to your cause or to attend your upcoming fundraiser. Creating a clear call to action and providing an accessible link to your event or donation portal will lead people in the right direction.
10. Create a Hashtag: Hashtags can be great social media fundraising tools because they collect all posts and put them in a central spot. Create a unique hashtag for your fundraiser and use it on all of your posts relating to that event. When people click on the hashtag, they can see all relevant posts using the same hashtag.
11. Stay Consistent: Having a consistent presence on social media will keep you top of mind to your followers and audience. Simply sharing one social media post about your fundraising event won’t drive near as much excitement and awareness as sharing weekly, and sometimes even daily, messages.
12. Use Scheduling Software: There are different software tools that help you manage and schedule your social media posts. Using a publishing tool will make your job easier and allow you to stay consistent without always having to be online. Buffer and Hootsuite are some great scheduling platforms.
13. Analyze Results: This is an important part of learning and growing for future social media fundraising. Areas to measure include awareness, growth, engagement, and conversions. If you use a scheduling tool for your social media campaign, the tool  will also help you measure your performance and analyze your campaign.
14. Follow Up: As a final step on how to promote your fundraiser on social media, never forget to follow up with your donors and supporters. Approaches to follow up through social media include sharing your fundraising results, thanking everyone who helped, sharing photos from your fundraiser, and even showing everyone how you used the funds.

 Social media is an important fundraising tool and can really amplify your fundraising efforts. We hope this post helped you learn more on how to use social media for your next fundraiser and the different ways that it can help you.