For some nonprofits, Facebook fundraising seems like an ineffective effort. Because the platform provides limited information about the users that launch fundraisers and those who donate to them, it can be challenging to actually steward the participants of these efforts for long-term donor relationships.
However, seeing as Facebook fundraising has raised $3 billion+ for nonprofits through the efforts of 45 million+ fundraiser participants, the platform can hardly be ignored. Nonprofit supporters are active on Facebook and if your nonprofit chooses not to steward them, you’re leaving valuable relationships on the table.
We’ve compiled a few of those best practices into tips that your organization can incorporate into your next social media campaign. Explore our tips for stewarding Facebook fundraiser participants through the following points:
Before we dive into our top tips for stewarding Facebook fundraiser participants, let’s walk through a quick overview of Facebook fundraising in general. This ensures that we’re all working from the same foundation before moving forward.
Overview of Facebook Fundraising
Facebook fundraising encompasses a variety of tools that empower nonprofit supporters to raise money for or donate to their favorite charities directly through the popular social network.
Most often, this is done through Facebook fundraisers. These are essentially peer-to-peer fundraisers, except rather than raising funds through a peer-to-peer platform, the funds are raised using Facebook’s fundraising tools. These fundraisers are initiated by Facebook users and generally follow this process:
- A user chooses to conduct a Facebook fundraiser.
- Using Facebook’s fundraising tools, they designate a beneficiary (your nonprofit) and write a personalized message to accompany the effort.
- They share the fundraiser with their friends, family, and acquaintances directly on the Facebook Timeline.
- The user’s Facebook friends donate to the fundraiser, and these donations are routed to your nonprofit.
There are a variety of scenarios in which these fundraisers can be conducted. For example, a Facebook user can “donate their birthday” and raise donations for your nonprofit on their special day. Or, you could hold a virtual peer-to-peer fundraising event where event participants raise donations through individual Facebook fundraisers.
When it comes to Facebook fundraiser “participants,” we’re generally referring to two main groups: the users who start fundraisers and the donors who give to them.
Due to Facebook’s privacy policies, there is limited information available about these two groups. However, there are methods that your team can use to connect with these participants and begin building life-long relationships.
Continue reading to learn how.
5 Tips to Steward Facebook Fundraiser Participants
1. Thank each user that started a fundraiser on your behalf.
Let’s begin with tips to steward the users who start fundraisers on behalf of your nonprofit. Because they’re raising funds for your nonprofit, you can be confident that they already have some existing knowledge or interest in your organization. But, that doesn’t mean you can sit back, relax, and simply benefit from their efforts!
Our first tip is to send a personalized thank you to the user who started the fundraiser. We recommend thanking each and every user that starts a fundraiser— either directly as a comment on their campaign, or on their Facebook page itself.
You can discover these fundraising campaigns by navigating to your nonprofit’s profile, accessing the “Fundraising” section, and using the newly unveiled Sort & Filter tool.
Sort and filter the fundraisers by creation date and status. Then, send thank-yous to the most recently created fundraisers that are active and ongoing! By doing so, each user knows that you are aware of and appreciate their effort. Plus, this initial communication can be the perfect segway into our next tip.
2. Communicate with the user throughout their campaign.
As with any other fundraising effort, a user can’t simply share the fundraiser with their Facebook friends once and call it a day. If they don’t actively promote the effort, they run the risk of having a zero-dollar fundraiser, something that has negative impacts for your nonprofit and the supporter alike.
Communicating with users who start fundraisers throughout their campaign provides an opportunity to share tips, tricks, and other motivators that drive the campaign further.
This could be as simple as telling the supporter that they can reach out to your team for tips and advice to help power their campaign to success. Share an email address when you send your initial thank-you and be prepared for questions!
Or, it could mean that you communicate with the fundraiser via Facebook Messenger, sharing tips, encouragement, and advice to help the user fundraise successfully.
Staying in touch for the duration of their fundraising campaigns is a great way to communicate clearly and show users that you’re invested in their success.
3. Use Facebook fundraising groups to create a community.
As we briefly mentioned earlier, Facebook fundraising has expanded beyond one-off, supporter-initiated campaigns. In fact, the social network is now the perfect platform to host virtual peer-to-peer fundraising events.
Just as with any other virtual peer-to-peer event, your supporters sign up to raise funds from their peers. But, instead of equipping them with personal fundraising pages via a separate peer-to-peer platform, the participants create Facebook fundraisers to seek donations from their peers.
With a non-virtual peer-to-peer event, these supporters would participate in a “challenge” aspect at the culmination of the event. This could be a 5k race, a walk-a-thon, or even a reading challenge! How can you replicate that atmosphere with a virtual event, where supporters complete the final challenge independently?
Use Facebook groups to create a community.
Create a Facebook group dedicated to the fundraising event and invite all participants to join. Encourage them to network with one another, share fundraising tips and ideas, and maybe even their training regimen if there is a physical challenge (like the aforementioned 5k race) involved.
This strategy not only creates a community for participants to engage with one another, similar to the in-person events, but also empowers your team to monitor the group’s messaging and be sure your nonprofit’s branding is maintained.
4. Make the most of any donor contact information provided.
One of the challenges of Facebook fundraising is that the platform’s privacy policies can drastically limit the information available about donors to Facebook fundraisers. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t connect with and steward those donors for continued support beyond the campaign they donated to!
There are a variety of ways that you can connect, thank, and share information with Facebook fundraising donors, like posting a thank you to the fundraiser organizer’s wall.
However, we’re going to focus on one strategy — making the most of the donor contact information provided.
If your nonprofit registers for Facebook’s fundraising tools and signs up for Facebook Payments, you may be able to access the contact information of some of your Facebook donors. This isn’t guaranteed, as this information is only available if the donor opts-in to share it. However, when available, we recommend reaching out to those donors after you receive their donations with a personalized thank-you note.
A great donor thank-you letter not only shows your appreciation but also increases the chances that the donor gives again in the future!
5. Share additional resources for future engagement.
So far, we’ve stressed the importance of thanking Facebook fundraiser participants. That’s a crucial first step in stewarding these participants and lays the foundation for a long-term relationship between them and your organization.
Note how we said that it’s a first step. Effective donor stewardship is an ongoing process that continually draws donors closer to your organization and encourages repeat giving in the future.
That brings us to our final tip:
Share additional resources to encourage fundraiser participants to continue engaging with your organization.
There are a few ways to do this. For example, while thanking donors, direct them to your nonprofit’s website with links to educational resources and volunteer opportunities. Or, you could utilize Facebook’s ad retargeting tools to share future fundraising opportunities with Facebook users who have already engaged with your nonprofit on the platform. With these strategies, you’ll engage Facebook fundraiser participants beyond the initial campaign they engaged with.
When you consider the above tips, they can be boiled down to two main efforts: thanking participants and providing opportunities for engagement.
One of the main complaints that nonprofits have about Facebook fundraising is that it’s hard to connect with and engage participants for the long run. However, as we’ve seen, there are a variety of ways to steward Facebook fundraiser participants during the campaign and well beyond!
The Top 4 Governance Mistakes that Nonprofit Boards Make
An effective board of directors plays a critical role in helping your nonprofit strive toward its mission. They provide much-needed guidance and insight for strategic planning and fundraising that helps to keep your team on the right track. But all too often, nonprofit boards underperform—even those that are strong-willed and have a passion for your mission. While mistakes are only human nature, there are some situations that can be detrimental to your mission.
Nonprofits commonly experience several governance mistakes made by their boards but aren’t quite sure how to avoid them. From failing to understand basic responsibilities to poor documentation that opens the organization up to legal issues, there are major missteps to avoid. Otherwise, you’ll spend time rectifying these problems that could be spent on making progress with your mission.
On the other hand, when governance is done right from the beginning, your board’s performance can be drastically enhanced by ensuring they’re efficient and well-informed. Making sure they’re backed by sufficient resources and knowledge can convey that you value their experience and this consideration can motivate them to make informed decisions, putting them (and your organization) on the path to success.
To help you identify these challenges within your own organization, we’ll review four leading governance issues and uncover suggestions for resolving them:
Understanding these challenges upfront can help you create a plan for avoiding them in the first place, rather than rectifying them after they’ve occurred. Let’s dive in.
Mistake #1: Selecting Board Members without Sufficient Care
Good governance starts with selecting board members who are passionate about your mission and possess admirable qualities, such as knowledge about your community backed by a strong desire for service. Often, we select friends, relatives, and business associates, because we believe they’ll share our same vision, support our views, and make meetings bearable (maybe even enjoyable). And sometimes it’s just because we can’t find anyone else to fill the position.
Other times, we select board members who are wealthy and influential, because we believe they’ll contribute substantial amounts to our mission and connect us to other influential and wealthy people. While this may seem like a good idea, you’ll want to be certain that your board of directors is composed of individuals who are going to attend meetings, provide real oversight, and govern using their own independent and well-informed judgment.
The board recruitment process is a heavy but necessary process. After all, these individuals are responsible for putting your nonprofit on the right path, so taking care in selecting the right board members is crucial. You’ll want to look for individuals who possess the following qualities:
Just as understanding your potential donors and ambassadors helps to strengthen your fundraising strategies, defining your ideal board member will help locate and appeal to the right individuals for the job.
Keeping the pipeline full of exceptional candidates is a never-ending job. So long as you remain persistent and specific with your preferred qualifications, you’ll locate passionate leaders who possess sufficient qualities for putting your nonprofit on the path to success.
Mistake #2: Neglecting to Educate and Inform Directors
Nonprofits often run into the issue of board members not fully understanding their responsibilities. Directors who regularly fail to meet their legal duties of care and responsibility can hinder progress and prevent the organization from reaching its goals.
It’s up to the president, chair, executive director, and really each individual board member to hold one another accountable and correct this lack of understanding. While education and accountability are ongoing commitments, there are a few practices you can implement in your existing processes:
Ineffective directors can pose major problems for nonprofits. Rectifying the situation as quickly as possible allows the board to fill knowledge gaps and make more informed decisions. If you’re unsure of where your board currently stands, have the board conduct a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis. This will help identify those gaps and create an action plan for moving forward.
Mistake #3: Failing to Embrace Board Diversity
Typically, an organization’s initial board is made up of friends and trusted advisors of the nonprofit’s founder. Over time, these individuals may reach out to their networks to fill vacancies as they arise. While this is certainly a smart move for brand new nonprofits, it becomes a problem when your board consists solely of people who went to the same schools, belong to the same clubs, and live in the same neighborhoods.
Think of it this way: if your board is chock-full of CFO-level executives, your finances may be in order, but other operational areas may fall by the wayside, like marketing and volunteer management. Instead, you need a group of individuals who possess varying skills to cover each area of your organization.
Boards greatly benefit from a diverse mix of leadership. A variety of valuable perspectives and experiences in the boardroom can help your team think outside the box and arrive at conclusions they might not otherwise reach.
Here are a few facets of board diversity to consider:
A diverse board is a thriving board! If all board members come from similar backgrounds, it’s time to diversify your pool of participants. Keep your eyes peeled for varying skills, experiences, and backgrounds that would add valuable perspectives to the board.
While law, accounting, and fundraising skills are obvious necessities, mission-related skills are also important. For instance, a domestic violence shelter may recruit a social worker or a policy expert, whereas an educational organization might recruit a retired school administrator or teacher.
Mistake #4: Poor Documentation of Decisions and Actions
In its meetings, your board has highly-focused conversations where it makes decisions that impact the health and vitality of your organization. Accurately documenting these discussions and actions in your meeting minutes is crucial—especially since your board has legal liability.
Some organizations adopt minutes that are complete and lengthy virtual transcriptions of their meetings. Conversely, some organizations only document actions without any mention of the process or deliberations, or worse, they don’t document anything. Instead of going with one of these extremes, work to find a more appropriate balance.
Documenting every discussion verbatim could create even greater exposure for liability and can make it very unlikely that anyone on your team will take the time to review the minutes for inaccuracies. On the other hand, only documenting actions (or nothing at all) can leave individuals confused later as to why certain decisions were made.
When developing your approach to minute-taking, we suggest the following best practices:
Remember, your minutes serve as an official record of your meetings. Both overly-detailed and scant board minutes can open up the board to liability issues.
According to this resource, you should “aim to create board meeting minutes that are specific enough to capture the board’s focus and decisions, but not so sparse that you can’t decipher what actually occurred during the meeting a few months down the line.” In turn, you’ll develop engaging minutes with the right amount of detail.
Quality governance can truly accelerate your team’s impact on the community. Keep your eyes peeled for these common mistakes and pitfalls within your own organization. Otherwise, failing to address these governance issues early on can prevent major issues later.
It all starts with selecting the right board members and continues through effective communication and documentation. By setting the groundwork early, every task your board takes on will be more efficient and well-informed. Your nonprofit and community will see and experience the benefits of your healthy nonprofit board governance practices. Good luck!
5 Tips for Stewarding Facebook Fundraiser Participants
For some nonprofits, Facebook fundraising seems like an ineffective effort. Because the platform provides limited information about the users that launch fundraisers and those who donate to them, it can be challenging to actually steward the participants of these efforts for long-term donor relationships.
However, seeing as Facebook fundraising has raised $3 billion+ for nonprofits through the efforts of 45 million+ fundraiser participants, the platform can hardly be ignored. Nonprofit supporters are active on Facebook and if your nonprofit chooses not to steward them, you’re leaving valuable relationships on the table.
We’ve compiled a few of those best practices into tips that your organization can incorporate into your next social media campaign. Explore our tips for stewarding Facebook fundraiser participants through the following points:
Before we dive into our top tips for stewarding Facebook fundraiser participants, let’s walk through a quick overview of Facebook fundraising in general. This ensures that we’re all working from the same foundation before moving forward.
Overview of Facebook Fundraising
Facebook fundraising encompasses a variety of tools that empower nonprofit supporters to raise money for or donate to their favorite charities directly through the popular social network.
Most often, this is done through Facebook fundraisers. These are essentially peer-to-peer fundraisers, except rather than raising funds through a peer-to-peer platform, the funds are raised using Facebook’s fundraising tools. These fundraisers are initiated by Facebook users and generally follow this process:
There are a variety of scenarios in which these fundraisers can be conducted. For example, a Facebook user can “donate their birthday” and raise donations for your nonprofit on their special day. Or, you could hold a virtual peer-to-peer fundraising event where event participants raise donations through individual Facebook fundraisers.
When it comes to Facebook fundraiser “participants,” we’re generally referring to two main groups: the users who start fundraisers and the donors who give to them.
Due to Facebook’s privacy policies, there is limited information available about these two groups. However, there are methods that your team can use to connect with these participants and begin building life-long relationships.
Continue reading to learn how.
5 Tips to Steward Facebook Fundraiser Participants
1. Thank each user that started a fundraiser on your behalf.
Let’s begin with tips to steward the users who start fundraisers on behalf of your nonprofit. Because they’re raising funds for your nonprofit, you can be confident that they already have some existing knowledge or interest in your organization. But, that doesn’t mean you can sit back, relax, and simply benefit from their efforts!
Our first tip is to send a personalized thank you to the user who started the fundraiser. We recommend thanking each and every user that starts a fundraiser— either directly as a comment on their campaign, or on their Facebook page itself.
You can discover these fundraising campaigns by navigating to your nonprofit’s profile, accessing the “Fundraising” section, and using the newly unveiled Sort & Filter tool.
Sort and filter the fundraisers by creation date and status. Then, send thank-yous to the most recently created fundraisers that are active and ongoing! By doing so, each user knows that you are aware of and appreciate their effort. Plus, this initial communication can be the perfect segway into our next tip.
2. Communicate with the user throughout their campaign.
As with any other fundraising effort, a user can’t simply share the fundraiser with their Facebook friends once and call it a day. If they don’t actively promote the effort, they run the risk of having a zero-dollar fundraiser, something that has negative impacts for your nonprofit and the supporter alike.
Communicating with users who start fundraisers throughout their campaign provides an opportunity to share tips, tricks, and other motivators that drive the campaign further.
This could be as simple as telling the supporter that they can reach out to your team for tips and advice to help power their campaign to success. Share an email address when you send your initial thank-you and be prepared for questions!
Or, it could mean that you communicate with the fundraiser via Facebook Messenger, sharing tips, encouragement, and advice to help the user fundraise successfully.
Staying in touch for the duration of their fundraising campaigns is a great way to communicate clearly and show users that you’re invested in their success.
3. Use Facebook fundraising groups to create a community.
As we briefly mentioned earlier, Facebook fundraising has expanded beyond one-off, supporter-initiated campaigns. In fact, the social network is now the perfect platform to host virtual peer-to-peer fundraising events.
Just as with any other virtual peer-to-peer event, your supporters sign up to raise funds from their peers. But, instead of equipping them with personal fundraising pages via a separate peer-to-peer platform, the participants create Facebook fundraisers to seek donations from their peers.
With a non-virtual peer-to-peer event, these supporters would participate in a “challenge” aspect at the culmination of the event. This could be a 5k race, a walk-a-thon, or even a reading challenge! How can you replicate that atmosphere with a virtual event, where supporters complete the final challenge independently?
Use Facebook groups to create a community.
Create a Facebook group dedicated to the fundraising event and invite all participants to join. Encourage them to network with one another, share fundraising tips and ideas, and maybe even their training regimen if there is a physical challenge (like the aforementioned 5k race) involved.
This strategy not only creates a community for participants to engage with one another, similar to the in-person events, but also empowers your team to monitor the group’s messaging and be sure your nonprofit’s branding is maintained.
4. Make the most of any donor contact information provided.
One of the challenges of Facebook fundraising is that the platform’s privacy policies can drastically limit the information available about donors to Facebook fundraisers. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t connect with and steward those donors for continued support beyond the campaign they donated to!
There are a variety of ways that you can connect, thank, and share information with Facebook fundraising donors, like posting a thank you to the fundraiser organizer’s wall.
However, we’re going to focus on one strategy — making the most of the donor contact information provided.
If your nonprofit registers for Facebook’s fundraising tools and signs up for Facebook Payments, you may be able to access the contact information of some of your Facebook donors. This isn’t guaranteed, as this information is only available if the donor opts-in to share it. However, when available, we recommend reaching out to those donors after you receive their donations with a personalized thank-you note.
A great donor thank-you letter not only shows your appreciation but also increases the chances that the donor gives again in the future!
5. Share additional resources for future engagement.
So far, we’ve stressed the importance of thanking Facebook fundraiser participants. That’s a crucial first step in stewarding these participants and lays the foundation for a long-term relationship between them and your organization.
Note how we said that it’s a first step. Effective donor stewardship is an ongoing process that continually draws donors closer to your organization and encourages repeat giving in the future.
That brings us to our final tip:
Share additional resources to encourage fundraiser participants to continue engaging with your organization.
There are a few ways to do this. For example, while thanking donors, direct them to your nonprofit’s website with links to educational resources and volunteer opportunities. Or, you could utilize Facebook’s ad retargeting tools to share future fundraising opportunities with Facebook users who have already engaged with your nonprofit on the platform. With these strategies, you’ll engage Facebook fundraiser participants beyond the initial campaign they engaged with.
When you consider the above tips, they can be boiled down to two main efforts: thanking participants and providing opportunities for engagement.
One of the main complaints that nonprofits have about Facebook fundraising is that it’s hard to connect with and engage participants for the long run. However, as we’ve seen, there are a variety of ways to steward Facebook fundraiser participants during the campaign and well beyond!