From animal-welfare organizations to those dedicated to preserving the environment or ending discrimination, over 1.5 million nonprofits use Facebook. But some of those nonprofits are worried the social network’s new algorithm could hurt fundraising.
Facebook announced in January that its new algorithm will favor more posts from friends and family. Posts from businesses and nonprofits now get less emphasis.
“Their pivot has kind of lumped a lot of people together, nonprofits — organizations that focus on messaging and change — versus brands that are selling products,” said Mary Iannone, program manager at Breakthrough U.S., a nonprofit focused on ending gender-based violence. "[It] doesn’t benefit either of us.”
Facebook has been encouraging to nonprofits, adding tools to make it easier to solicit and collect donations, and Breakthrough is one of its “success stories.” Yet Iannone says the nonprofit didn’t receive any guidance from the social network about how to navigate the algorithm changes.
Breakthrough has over 55,000 followers on Facebook and keeps the “start a fundraiser” button pinned to the top of its page. It has seen a 10 percent decrease in engagement under the new algorithm, Iannone estimates.
Fighting Fake News
With pressure building on Facebook to fight the swell of false information aimed at voters, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in a January posting: “You’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard — it should encourage interactions between people.”
Iannone said the choice of words is ironic because nonprofits themselves seek to drive meaningful interactions.
Facebook did not return the Chronicle’s request for comment about the impact of its algorithm changes on charities.
‘Feeling It for Years’
Other nonprofits indicated they were less worried about the most recent changes to Facebook’s algorithm. Adam Bloom, social-media manager at the Nature Conservancy, said he hasn’t noticed decreased engagement from its about 1.3 million Facebook followers yet.
“Facebook has already been emphasizing friends and family over brands, and larger brands (including nonprofits) have been feeling it more for years,” Bloom said in an email.
Bex Young, digital-engagement manager at the World Wildlife Fund, which has nearly 2.5 million Facebook followers, also sounded an optimistic note about her organization’s ability to adjust to the changes.
Young said fundraising on Facebook has been a “game changer” in the past year, and the organization hopes to incorporate more fundraising into other social-media sites like Twitter and Instagram.
At 1,000 Days, a charity focused on maternal and early-childhood health, which Facebook also touts as a success story, managing director Adrianna Logalbo says the nonprofit has not made any changes to its social-media strategy in the wake of the changes. She said 1,000 Days didn’t receive guidance from Facebook regarding the changes.
For posts the charity wants to make more visible, 1,000 Days pays a fee to have it seen by a targeted group of people. “However, this has been our practice before Facebook’s algorithm change,” she said in an email.
Demographic Disparities
Experts say that nonprofits must be nimble to adjust to the rapidly changing nature of online fundraising. That may be more difficult for smaller organizations with fewer resources.
Iannone noted that 80 percent of Breakthrough’s Facebook followers are in the 18- to 25-year-old range, and young people typically give less than older adults. Additionally, Breakthrough’s target audience is increasingly migrating to Instagram.
According to the research firm eMarketer, Facebook will lose 2 million users ages 24 and younger this year.
Instagram is “the place to be right now,” Iannone said.
One of the drawbacks to pushing more Instagram content is it’s owned by Facebook and uses similar algorithms to prioritize which content users see first.
“Nonprofits need to meet people where they’re at,” the Nature Conservancy’s Bloom said. “People across generations use social platforms in such different ways, so it makes sense to diversify. Instagram Stories, with its vertical, slightly off-the-cuff photos and videos, has really helped us tell the conservation story in a digestible, relatable format.”
And users appear to be hungry for nonprofit content. According to the research firm M+R, in 2016, nonprofit social-media audiences increased on Facebook 23 percent, on Twitter 50 percent, and on Instagram 101 percent.
Pushing Video
Young cautioned it’s too early to tell how the algorithm changes will affect engagement.
“The story is really going to be in the data that comes out over the coming months on how, one, this affects brands over all but, two, will this have an equal impact on nonprofits?” Young said.
She hopes nonprofits do find more meaningful interactions through Facebook.
“People are on smaller devices with limited time with more content to absorb,” Young said. “How are we making ourselves stand out?”
