Social media is not only for dances and puppies. We’ve all come across Facebook fundraisers for someone’s birthday or even big crowdfunding campaigns for bigger causes, such as the Australian wildfires or the Black Lives Matter movement. The point is, social media fundraising is a thing. So, NGOs and nonprofits, this one’s for you.
To get you started with social media fundraising, we’ll look at three examples of successful fundraising campaigns. Take what works for you; ignore what doesn’t. In the end, all we want is to give you a chance to implement the best practices for your campaign.
The Melanoma March is Melanoma Institute Australia’s major annual fundraising campaign. This initiative seeks to bring together melanoma patients, their families, and local communities to raise awareness and research funds.
Pre-COVID times allowed this event to be a normal march across seven cities, with the registration fee being a donation to the cause. In March 2020, the organisation created a virtual march powered by a social wall, and in 2021 they innovated the social media fundraising game with a new method.
Selling footprints and engaging a community
The 2020 virtual event consisted of doing an activity, taking a picture or video of it and sharing it on social media tagged with the hashtag. The posts were collected on a social wall to create a sense of a virtual community. On the page with the social wall, attendees were encouraged to donate, as shown in the picture below.
Melanoma March 2021 came up with the fantastic idea to sell footprints in addition to the march. For $30, you could buy a personalised footprint on the website. You receive a digital image of a footprint, which represents the steps taken to combat melanoma. The money is a donation, and you get to add a message to each footprint, which is then shared on a social wall. The new method of selling a symbolic footprint allowed the March to continue raising both awareness and funds.
Lions Clubs International is a worldwide volunteering organisation for individuals to join together to give their valuable time and effort to improving their communities. They have multiple ongoing fundraising campaigns, all of them on social media.
They have multiple campaigns, but we noticed two in particular: New Voices and World Diabetes Day. The 2020–2021 New Voices Initiative promotes gender parity and diversity and seeks to increase the participation of women, young adults and underrepresented populations within the association. Whereas the World Diabetes Day campaign raises awareness for diabetes by completing a variety of short, convenient online activities, like taking an online Type 2 Diabetes Risk Assessment or learning about diabetes rates in your country.
What makes these two campaigns successful is the social proof displayed on each website. People from underrepresented populations are encouraged to speak up on social media and tag posts with #NewVoices. Similarly, every act of support towards World Diabetes Day is encouraged to be shared on social media and tagged with #LionsFightDiabetes. All the content generated from these campaigns is collected on social walls.
The goal of the diabetes campaign is to raise funds; therefore, you can see multiple calls for donations on their website. The pictures of supporters and the subtle ‘Donate’ buttons create a powerful combination that boosts donations. These two could be even more effective if paired with, say, CTA buttons attached to individual social media posts on the wall (possible with us!).
Collect social media content for your fundraiser on a social wall!
For years, the yearly fundraising walk called Pet Palooza has been an important part of the Humane Society of Charlotte’s fundraising calendar. But, this year, because of COVID-19, they had to transform their event into a virtual one. So, how do you take a fundraising walk and make it virtual without losing all those fun elements that connect people in an event setting?
Pet Palooza has always focused on a fundraising walk and peer-to-peer fundraising, so Pet Palooza Rerouted doubles down on that idea and encourages supporters to walk in their neighbourhood, parks, and with their own safe, small groups rather than gathering as a very large crowd in one of Charlotte’s local parks. By encouraging each walker’s participation via social media, the organisers hope to create a feeling of togetherness, while physically separated.
We talked to Pet Palooza’s organisers and asked them in what way is a social wall helping them reroute their fundraiser walk, they answered:
“The Walls.io social wall helps provide that feeling of togetherness, even when we’re separated during Pet Palooza. HSC is encouraging our donors to take selfies and photos while they walk and share them on their social media using #PetPaloozaRerouted. Walls.io is helping to gather all of these photos in a singular location and allow all of our participants to see their friends and family participating.”
Emily Cook, Marketing & Communications Manager, Humane Society Charlotte
Keep that feeling of togetherness during your virtual event with a social wall
A fundraising platform for the modern nonprofit
We’ve partnered with Classy, a fundraising software that helps nonprofits maximise their impact through a suite of world-class online fundraising tools. No matter the size or cause of your campaign, you can use Classy in combination with Walls.io to raise money and engage communities.
Classy helps you create different types of campaigns personalised for your cause; from landing pages with donation options to international events and cross-currency fundraising solutions. The best part is you can embed your social wall on any of their fundraising solutions.
Don’t take the fun out of fundraising!
These campaigns teach us that the more you innovate and involve a community with your cause, the more fruitful the outcome. Melanoma March had the genius idea of selling personalised footprints, which helped them collect funds even before the March’s official date. Lions Clubs are experts at fundraising experiences; therefore, they know a social wall will enhance their campaigns. Social media fundraising, when done right, is a great way to support a cause.