Nonprofits Continue to Aid Victims of Natural Disasters

With Monday being President’s Day, we thought we’d carry the theme for one more post. Fashions, technology and industry may change, but the need to help one’s fellow man does not. Nonprofits and government programs will continue to exist until the basic needs of food, education and shelter are met. There will continue to be programs that were and are of particular interest to our presidents that continue to thrive as important issues today.

Somehow it seems like more natural disasters are hitting our world; every few months images of despair and destruction are flashed upon the television screen. Obviously these forces of nature are hardly new, and presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt and George H.W. Bush had to face the repercussions of earthquakes that hit the San Francisco Bay Area during their terms in office.  Add to that countless hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts and blizzards, and I’d account that just about every president has had to compensate to address various disaster assistance resources provided by the government. In recent history, from Japan to New Orleans to Haiti, thousands have had to start over as they rebuild their homes and their lives. Independent nonprofits have also made an impact for these individuals and communities who have needed help to travel down this difficult path of reconstruction.

Nonprofits have the incredible task of providing aid to clients while maintaining a current fundraising strategy. A good example of online fundraising success is a recent disaster relief campaign on the Fundly platform that has raised $82,379 of their $125,000 goal. For every 100 donations that were given, 3,878 impressions were made to the cause’s Facebook page within a 24-hour period.  This flow of web traffic brought a 15% increase in their donation yield during that period of time. This is the power of social fundraising.

Most importantly, through this site they have been able to serve hot meals, first aid kits and shelter to countless people. Fundly is proud to partner with incredible causes like these as their online fundraising platform and looks forward to aiding more organizations to achieve this success!

Five Ways to Convince Your Non Profit to Focus on Social Media

Are you struggling to convince naysayers in your non profit to take social media seriously?
Use these five tips to convince them to pay attention:

Step One: Show them this video: social media is NOT a FAD!

 

Step Two: Find case studies of social media use by organizations like you

 

When I tried to convince my daughter’s school that they should have a presence on Facebook, I did a quick study to find other schools like ours that were effectively using Facebook to stay in touch with alumni of the school. Seeing hundreds of alums share heart warming stories and stay connected to the school quickly convinced the principal to get involved with social media as well.

Step Three: Set small goals and iterate your way to success

Sticking with our school example. A first goal for my daughter’s school is to create the Facebook page, assign somebody inside the organization to coordinate regular updates and to add a link to the Facebook page on all school staff’s e-mails so people know about the page and start liking it. Gathering Facebook fans is a great first goals. Next the school assigned somebody from each outgoing class to be in charge of posting updates on Facebook and, more importantly, to make sure that all classmates “like” the school alumni page. What worked for this school could work for your non-profit as well. Add your page link to all your communications with existing and prospective supporters. Instead of student and alumni, perhaps you can find a small group of volunteers to be in charge of posting updates about a local chapter and to encourage neighbors to follow the news.

Step Four: Show results (compare before and after)

Tell them what you are going to do. Tell them what you did. Then tell them again. Clear communications of goals and results is a proven management technique to keep people in the boat with your project.  It’s probably best to stick with existing performance indicators. If you have defined success within your non profit as the number of new supporters you sign up each months, or perhaps the number of individual donors, then measure this same number both before and after social media implementation to show progress. Also collect some anecdotes to illustrate the success: quotes from people spreading your word on Facebook for example.

Step Five: When all else fails …

When all else fails, remind them of the discussions happening around Non Profit land in 1999: Do we really need a web site? Today’s version of this is “Do we really need a Facebook page?”.  There are already organizations who forego a website all together and decide to live on Facebook only: when I organized a cross-country trip for my family this past summer, I found many small dude ranches and B&B’s who exclusively promote their business on Facebook (where most of their customers live). Easier than staging and maintaining a website. Your supporters may not yet shun you for not having a Facebook page, but think how strange it would be if you didn’t have a website today …

Promote your fundraisers, increase donations, and strengthen relationships with your supporters today, using Fundly’s online social fundraising platform.

Good luck!