Use Social Media to Amplify Your Fundraising Event

The Associated

In-person galas raise critical funds and build awareness for the work nonprofits do. Why not extend that impact beyond those gathered?

A thoughtful social-media strategy for events can help you expand your pool of donors and attract support from those unable to attend. With online giving gaining momentum every year, you could be leaving significant sums on the table if you’re not building social outreach into your event planning.

Here are five digital tactics that can help you take a fundraising event to the next level.

1. Build interest early. It’s important to build a strong foundation long before the event takes place. Here are a few steps to take as early as possible.

• Plan posts to send at regular intervals that recognize speakers or that share event highlights to build initial interest in the event. Select a certain day (or days) of the week to post — and maintain that schedule.
• Stream a live video announcing the gala and any sponsorship opportunities.
• Set up a Facebook event page to share more details and sell tickets.
• Create videos about your cause and the gala to share on social networks.
• Define a hashtag for the event and use it in every related post to generate recognition. It’s a good idea to use the same hashtag each year; this helps keep up awareness from one year to the next.
• Give your speakers or other prominent guests tools they can use to help promote the gala and publicize their involvement. For example, create engaging graphics and sample posts for others to share.

2. Offer digital sponsorships. Traditional sponsorship packages often include mentions on social media among the benefits, but few nonprofits offer a digital-only package, in which a business agrees to be a sponsor in exchange for recognition online. Digital content reaches far beyond the confines of an event, so it can be an attractive option for companies interested in getting noticed for trying to make a difference. This can be especially useful for small nonprofits that may attract fewer guests but have a bigger audience online.

A digital sponsorship package could include multiple offerings. Here are several ideas.

• Produce a video that tells your organization’s story and integrates the sponsor. Give the sponsor “cross-posting” access on Facebook, which allows it to share your video on its company page instead of uploading it or sharing your post. (Note that cross-posting access will track the total number of views from both organizations’ pages, which helps increase engagement and viewership on your page.)
• Host a live video featuring a beneficiary of your work. Tag the sponsor in the post and enable cross-posting.
• Host a “Live With” video on Instagram and have the sponsor join you remotely for a split-screen conversation. This notifies both organizations’ followers, which helps to attract new supporters and expand your audience. For example, Unseen, a nonprofit that trains organizations fighting human trafficking, shared a live Facebook video in which it interviewed a group it works with about its impact. The partner nonprofit, Shai Fund, also shared the feed on its page to help boost views and engagement.

  

• Let a sponsor’s spokesperson take over your Instagram “story” — a story shows photos, videos, and texts that expire in 24 hours — to showcase the company’s involvement with your cause.
• Create a virtual-reality experience to give event attendees and your social-media followers a unique and immersive opportunity to see where donations go. The cost of this tactic varies, but nonprofits on a smaller budget should check out Oculus’s “VR for Good” program, which connects content creators to causes. For example, the educational nonprofit Pencils of Promise gave guests at its 2018 gala virtual-reality headsets to explore a schoolhouse in rural Ghana that the organization built. The event raised $2 million, and the footage received more than 8 million views.

  

• Offer social-media posts that include the sponsor’s logo, and link back to its website.
• Include the sponsor’s logo in your Facebook or Twitter cover images as the event approaches.
• Feature the sponsor in a blog post.

The opportunities are nearly endless. You can use your organization’s social-media data, such as the average engagement rate (total number of likes, reactions, and comments divided by your follower count), reach (the number of people who have seen your post), followers, and video views to demonstrate to potential sponsors the value of the online package they can purchase.

3. “Go Live” on Facebook. Streaming a live video — with a donate button so viewers can give during your feed — is a powerful way to boost awareness and revenue on the day of a gala.

• Think through what you’ll be sharing in the video. Will the event include a heartwarming speech, performance, or special guest you could highlight?
• Enable cross-posting for sponsors and speakers so you can increase views.
• Include a specific “call to action” in the copy of your post, and make sure whoever speaks in the video asks for donations directly.
• Ensure the video has quality audio and lighting — your audience wants to hear and see you.

Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals recently streamed a live video feed during its annual “Children’s Hospitals Week” fundraising event. The group raised nearly $5,000 through its Facebook Live alone and generated more than 250,000 views. The organization went live for more than an hour, providing ample time for new viewers to join and watch. It also shared its mission and stories of patients to show the online audience what their donations support and examples of the impact their giving can help make.

Another memorable example is singer Ariana Grande’s live video feed during her 2017 “One Love Manchester” benefit concert, which funneled more than $280,000 in donations to the Entertainment Industry Foundation.

Facebook recently announced that the donate button will soon be available in Instagram stories, so make sure to look for this feature in your “stickers” — the gifs or graphics you can add to your stories.

4. Hold an online auction. This is a great way for supporters who can’t make your gala in person to participate and contribute. Plus, creating a separate digital auction with items that are only available online can help your nonprofit reach a different audience online and raise more money.

It’s important to promote digital auctions on a variety of communications channels. For example, you should run a paid advertising campaign on social media and include information about the auction in all printed materials for the gala to make sure those in attendance know about it.

You can host a digital auction on your organization’s website or through a third-party fundraising event platform like BiddingforGood or Greater Giving.

5. Recap the event. You can take a few simple steps to keep up the interest, conversation, and giving after an event concludes. For example:

• Create a new Twitter “moment” that showcases highlights on Twitter related to the gala. This is a visually appealing yet easy way to showcase the most impactful moments of the night. When you create a Twitter moment, you’re essentially creating a highlight reel of tweets from the night. The moment can include other users’ tweets, images, and videos as well as your own. (Tag @moments and @nonprofits to increase your chances of getting retweeted and amplifying your post.)
• Make an Instagram “highlight,” which is similar to a Twitter moment. You can select your favorite stories to add to a highlight that will stay on your profile as long as you like.
• Post a video on IGTV, Instagram’s video application, which allows users to publish 15 seconds to 10 minutes of video content. (If you’re a verified account, you can upload up to 60 minutes of content.) Videos must be vertical, so you should request a version in this format if you hire a professional videographer to film your event. A video that recaps the gala or advertises the date for next year’s gathering are both options that work well.
• Upload your best event photos to a new Facebook album. Doing this each year will help potential guests see what you’ve accomplished and how much fun it is to attend so they’ll consider joining in the future.

Dana Bakich is founder and CEO of Positive Equation, a social-media consultancy (@positivequation) in Los Angeles and digital producer for “American Idol.”