Few nonprofits can match the Human Rights Campaign’s social-media presence, but for years the lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgender-rights advocacy group saw its hordes of followers as an afterthought.
“There was this longstanding attitude that it was just kids on Facebook and Twitter,” says Lindsey Twombly, HRC’s deputy director of online strategy and social media. “They were just there to like and share things.”
The organization didn’t see the donor potential in its 2 million Facebook likes or 446,000 Twitter followers until an unlikely 2012 experiment.
It began when the social-media team noticed a closet filled with HRC-branded water bottles left over from a previous fundraising push. But there wasn’t enough to justify using it as a premium for a direct-mail or email campaign.
So HRC instead offered the unclaimed swag on its Facebook and Twitter pages in exchange for a donation.
“We were just trying to get rid of them to make room for other things,” says Ms. Twombly.
Get rid of them they did—and quickly. As followers snapped up the water bottles, HRC realized its online community represented a potent fundraising force.
“We’d been sitting on a gold mine, and we had no idea,” says Ms. Twombly.
In 2013, the organization formalized its strategy and rolled out eight social-media fundraising campaigns, four associated with email campaigns and four exclusive to social media.
Combined, those eight drives resulted in 4,700 gifts totalling $60,200. More than 60 percent of the contributions came from new donors.
The organization also learned what kinds of appeals worked best with its online supporters. About 40 percent of its Facebook followers are 35 or younger, and Ms. Twombly says the organization’s millennial supporters, in particular, respond to low-dollar requests with some sort of reward attached. The reward can be tangible, like an HRC sticker, or intangible, like a matching gift.
Though their gifts tend to be modest, the young donors brought in by HRC’s social-media fundraising may someday mature into major contributors. That possibility has spurred the organization to rewire its thinking about social media and fundraising.
“No lie, we absolutely stumbled into it,” says Ms. Twombly. “I would encourage other organizations to learn from our stumble and take advantage of it from the get-go.”
By the Numbers (2013 Social-Media Campaign)
Recipients: 1,355,848 average
Response rate: 0.35 percent over the year
Total cost for HRC stickers: $9,846
Income generated: $60,200
Average gift: $12.64
Cost to raise a dollar: $0.16
Donations: 4,700
New Donors: about 2,800