USE EVERYDAY WEBSITES TO REACH YOUR YEAR-END GOALS
USE EVERYDAY WEBSITES TO REACH YOUR YEAR-END GOALS
As the holidays approach, many nonprofit organizations are gearing up for their year-end fundraising campaign. If you work as a fundraising professional, this may be a stressful time of year for you. Perhaps you find yourself procrastinating by spending too much time on Facebook and Twitter. What you may not know is that many social media platforms, as well as other everyday websites, offer simple tools that can enable you to boost year-end donations.
Here are a few of our favorites:
Savvy nonprofits are already utilizing Facebook to build an online community and promote their cause. By using Facebook’s Fundraising Tools, organizations can also raise money on Facebook by adding a donate button to their page header, posts, live video, or ads. In addition, Fundraising Tools allows supporters to create fundraisers for their favorite organization. Charitable organizations based in selected countries are eligible to apply to use Fundraising Tools.
Airbnb: Social Impact Experiences
Airbnb’s website encourages users to “book unique homes and experience a city like a local.” Apart from offering breathtaking flats in destinations around the globe, Airbnb has begun to branch out by offering unique experiences hosted by locals in popular destinations. Building on this concept, Airbnb’s Social Impact Experiences is a tool which enables a registered nonprofit organization’s employees, board members, or volunteers to create an experience that engages participants in the organization’s cause. Examples of experiences include volunteering at an animal shelter, attending a benefit concert, and gardening in an urban setting. All proceeds go directly to the organization.
Your last experience on eBay may have involved bidding on that perfect mid-century modern lamp, but eBay is not just for auctions any more. Through the eBay for Charity program, eBay buyers can make a donation to a charity and eBay sellers can sell items to support a charity. The program also allows nonprofits to sell items to benefit their own organization or host a high profile charity campaign.
Twitter has become all the rage in recent years, with words like “hashtag” and “tweet” entering into the popular lexicon. Many nonprofits have also utilized Twitter to create a loyal following. How can you use this platform to fundraise for your cause?
Charitweet is a donation platform that operates via Twitter. Based on the same principles as text-to-donate, this platform enables supporters to send donations, or Charitweets, directly to an organization utilizing a tweet with a maximum of 140 characters. In order to start receiving donations via Twitter, charities must sign up to become a partner.
If you are looking to broaden your nonprofit’s exposure, Google Ad Grants may be just the solution. This program provides nonprofits with $10,000 of in-kind advertising every month from Google AdWords, which shows your ad to people who are searching on Google for organizations similar to yours. It’s a great way to drive more visitors, and contributions, to your nonprofit’s website, especially as you ramp up that year-end fundraising campaign. You can then use the Google Analytics tool to evaluate how your ads are performing.
- Click on the links above to learn more about these programs, including their individual application processes and eligibility requirements.
- Visit the Pathfinder website to discover additional tools to bolster your year-end fundraising efforts.