Social Media for Nonprofits Tips and Resources

With the growing prevalence of the internet, the necessity of developing a digital strategy is not something nonprofits should overlook. Over the past several years, many nonprofits recognized this opportunity and began shifting to digital outreach. The pandemic accelerated that transition, and with social distancing guidelines in full effect, organizations can no longer interact with supporters face-to-face. In other words, having a digital presence is more important than ever.

To strengthen your online presence and connect with supporters during social distancing, you’ll need to develop a nonprofit digital strategy. In short, a nonprofit digital strategy is a plan to expand your organization’s reach online. It involves any outreach that takes place online, including your website, social media accounts, and any other marketing materials.

With many of your supporters already online, digital marketing is one of the most effective ways to reach them. However, with all its nuances, it can be difficult to know where to start (especially if you’re not particularly tech-savvy). To help, this guide will cover the essential first steps to improving your online presence:

1. Upgrade your current technology.
2. Define your overall goals.
3. Develop a communication plan.
4. Analyze performance data.

Developing a strong digital strategy will offer ongoing value to your nonprofit, both with fundraising and sharing your mission. If you’re ready to learn the necessary first steps, let’s get started.

Step #1: Upgrade Your Current Technology.

To truly maximize your online presence, you’ll need a dependable online fundraising solution. You likely already have a platform (or several) that you use, but it’s always worthwhile to check for potential areas of improvement.

Analyze your organization’s current toolkit and determine where it’s falling short. For reference, these are the core features your tech stack needs in order to ensure success:

• Customizable donation forms. Your donation form is the core of your online fundraising strategy. In order to accept donations online, you’ll need a donation form located directly on your website. Further, you should be able to customize it to match your brand and collect the information you need.
• Web development tools. A dependable content management system (CMS) will help you create a beautiful website that engages visitors and encourages interaction. Make sure your CMS is nonprofit-specific so that it includes all the fundraising functionality that generic website builders don’t offer.
• Marketing tools. Proactive communication with supporters is one of the most important parts of fundraising. With software that offers dedicated marketing tools, you’ll be able to automate data from your CRM, segment your supporters into email lists, and schedule emails so you can stay connected and steward strong donor relationships.
• Data and analytics. When used effectively, insightful analytics can inform future decision-making and improve fundraising efforts. Ensure your software allows you to monitor the most important data to your team, so you can visualize your efforts and locate areas in need of improvement.

Your online presence can mean the difference between exceeding fundraising goals and falling short. Especially as social distancing remains in effect, it’s important that you have a centralized system that allows you to continue fundraising and to connect with donors from afar.

Step #2: Define Your Overall Goals.

After you’ve solidified your toolkit, it’s imperative that you determine your desired outcomes for your digital strategy. Setting measurable goals prior to taking action will serve as a strong foundation and guide your strategy development.

If you’re struggling to determine which objectives to set, start with more general ideas, such as:

• Increasing digital event sign-ups
• Increasing member satisfaction scores (determined via surveys)
• Raising a certain amount of money

Once you’ve set more general goals, you’ll want to nail down the specifics and make them concrete. To accomplish this, there are a few key steps to take as you set your digital goals:

1. Analyze your current strategies. What gaps exist in your current digital process? Your updated goals should address any shortcomings, whether it’s an issue due to ineffective use of staff time or underperforming technology.
2. Talk to key stakeholders. Those who are directly involved in executing your digital strategy may be able to provide insight into areas that need improvement. Ask your director, board members, and any other leadership for feedback on goals they think are worth considering.
3. Review your long-term priorities. Each of your goals must align with your nonprofit’s long-term priorities, whether they’re financial, program-related, or mission-oriented. Take the time early on to ensure your digital strategy goals don’t contradict your broader goals to avoid conflict down the line.

Walking through these steps will guide you toward more concrete, actionable goals from the start. Whichever goals you choose, make sure they’re quantitative so that your team will be able to measure progress toward them. You’ll start off on the right foot by setting smart, achievable goals with realistic checkpoints along the way.

Step #3: Develop a Communication Plan.

Once you’ve implemented efficient technology and defined concrete goals, you’ll need to develop a communication plan to help you reach those objectives. Starting with your target audience, select the platforms that will likely yield positive results.

Let’s explore three digital marketing outlets that any nonprofit digital strategy should take into account along with tips for successfully using each:

• Your website. Your nonprofit’s website is likely the first stop on anyone’s journey to learn more about your cause. It houses information pertaining to your programs, your work, and involvement opportunities. The best nonprofit websites include valuable content that can be shared across all outlets to drive traffic back to the site itself. This includes a well-designed donation page, your volunteer form, blog content, and more. Any outreach (e.g., emails, social media, etc.) should direct users back to your website, so the onsite content must be optimized to convert them into donors, volunteers, or advocates.
• With all the hype surrounding social media, it can be easy to neglect a tried-and-true method: email. Use your emails to promote new content on your website as well as involvement opportunities. Adjust your messaging and target email subscribers using segmentation, which involves grouping your supporters into meaningful groups (e.g., major donors, recurring donors, volunteers, etc.). Learn about this strategy in depth with Doubleknot’s ultimate donor segmentation guide.
• Social media. With an estimated 6 billion social media users worldwide, there’s a good chance some of your existing supporters and future prospects have social networks. Harness the power of the share button with digital content such as engaging videos, powerful imagery, inspiring donation appeals, and content on your website, such as informational blog posts. Interact with followers in the comment section and invite them to share your posts with their personal networks for an even greater reach.

For the best results, you’ll want to implement a combination of various channels, which is a popular strategy known as multichannel marketing. However, investing time in several platforms may ultimately turn into a waste of resources.

Instead, you’ll need to select the digital channels that make the most sense for your team and its conversion goals. This allows you to refine your messaging, instead of sending mediocre outreach across several platforms. To explore this concept further, take a look at CharityEngine’s multichannel fundraising guide, which provides tips your team can implement.

Developing your digital plans with each specific outlet in mind will allow you to create effective messages. Doing so in advance will give you sufficient time to create content that’s optimized to attract attention from each outlet’s audience.

Step #4: Analyze Performance Data.

Once you’ve reached your marketing or fundraising goals, it can be easy to stop there. However, to solidify your digital presence, you’ll need to continuously analyze performance and update your strategy as you go. Identifying which conversion metrics you’d like to track early in the process will help you determine progress and overall performance as your strategy unfolds.

The specific metrics your team will need to gather and analyze depend on the type of campaign you’ve hosted. Specifically, these are common data points that can be used to inform your future outreach strategies:

• Donor Acquisition
• Donor Retention
• Volunteer Applications
• Event Registrations
• Email Subscriptions

If you’re struggling to determine which metrics to track, base them off of the goals you set early on. From there, break down the quantitative metric that measures that specific outcome. For instance, if your goal was to increase the effectiveness of your email campaigns, you may consider measuring open rates, conversion rates, and unsubscribe rates.

Without analyzing progress, the time and resources you’ve invested in developing a digital strategy will go to waste. By taking this extra step, you’ll continue improving going forward and maximize your potential.

There are many steps involved in creating a nonprofit digital strategy. Remember, the right technology will serve as the foundation for your plans and will open the door to a number of possibilities. Go into it with a strategic game plan, and you’ll be sure to expand your audience and reach your conversion goals.

If you’d like to learn more about developing a strong digital presence, check out DNL OmniMedia’s nonprofit digital strategy guide. You’ll learn about a range of steps your team can take to solidify your digital outreach plans and improve outcomes. Best of luck!

Before the ubiquitous use of social media, managers and board members of 501c3 organizations would have had a hard time unintentionally “lobbying.” Communicating a political position used to require big spends like radio or TV ad buys, press release circulation, or printing posters and leaflets for distribution. Now, however, a post(s) by a nonprofit manager or board member on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube could expose a 501c3 organization to risk of noncompliance with IRS lobbying rules. Therefore, organizations should learn some of the IRS’s “lobbying” rules of the road. Note, other entities, like the FEC and various state agencies, also regulate political speech, but this article limits its analysis to those rules found in the Internal Revenue Code.

All nonprofits should learn the definition of “lobbying” before adopting social media policies for any of its affiliates, including its board members and managers. An organization may engage in “direct lobbying” or “grassroots lobbying.” Organizations directly lobby when they both communicate their viewpoint and request an action from those who draft and/or enact the relevant laws. Organizations engage in “grassroots lobbying” when they both encourage others to communicate a viewpoint and request action from those who draft and/or enact laws.  For example, stating, “Citizens of State X, vote for Ballot Initiative 10 in the next election,” is direct lobbying (because every citizen voting for/against the ballot initiative is a “legislator”); and stating, “Citizens of State X, call Sen. Doe at [phone number] to get them to vote for Bill 10 in the next legislative session,” is grassroots lobbying.

Note, “lobbying” does not include non-partisan, education, and research activities relating to matters of public policy (e.g. a whitepaper on climate change without reference to a specific law or candidate).

If a board member or manager  “lobbies,” as defined above, even on  their personal social media pages (or elsewhere), the charity should consider whether the IRS could interpret that activity to be a “substantial part” of the nonprofit’s overall activities, thereby risking revocation of its 501c3 status. The policies articulated below contemplate a nonprofit subject to the “no substantial part” test referenced above.

No Substantial Part Test

Unfortunately, the IRS and much of the relevant caselaw has not clearly defined when lobbying constitutes a “substantial part” of a nonprofit’s activities. The analysis does include, among other things, time spent by the organization’s board and managers. Thus, organizations should consider:

1. how managers and board members communicate in social media (both on their own pages and others);
2. the organization should maintain disclaimers across its social media accounts;
3. track the time and publicity of political statements made by charity leadership; and
4. if all this seems confusing, consider the “expenditure test” as an alternative to the “no substantial part” test.

First, organizations should adopt clear policies about how managers and board members interact with others’ posts. This policy should cover leadership interaction on their own pages and on others’ pages.

On their own pages, charity leadership should include, in their bio or other permanent location, a statement that the opinions and statements of the individual manager or board member does not reflect the views of the organization. While the IRS does not automatically attribute every statement made by a manager or board member to an organization, an abundance of caution, in this context, makes sense. Note, even if a board member or manager does not make affirmative political statements, selectively promoting, removing, or commenting upon others’ posts on their own pages may be considered a form of “lobbying.” So, it is advisable to maintain a disclaimer whether that manager or board member plans on commenting upon elections or legislation.

On others’ pages,  a nonprofit’s social media policy should caution or prohibit “liking,” “retweeting,” or supporting political posts or posts with website links, even if they are non-political. Websites are dynamic. So, an apolitical “like” or “retweet” may become political when the owner of the linked site changes the “liked” or “retweeted” page. If a board member or manager feels compelled to engage in political discussions on social media, they should ensure that, in addition to their bio disclaimer, each post has a disclaimer that their statements do not express the views of the nonprofit.

In short, when adopting social media policies for charity leadership, organizations should ensure that board members and managers clearly articulate when they speak for themselves and when they speak for the organization.

Second, because board member and manager statements will be viewed in the context of the organization as a whole under the “no substantial part” test, the organization should also maintain disclaimers across its social media accounts. The disclaimer should state that the opinions or statements made by all charity affiliates (but especially pointing out the leadership) belong to those individuals personally and that no one should attribute them to the nonprofit. If board members and managers make political comments on their own social media pages, the organization should take care when mentioning them on social media to ensure that the organization is not incorporating personal, political views into their organization’s social media.

Third, track all time spent by board members and managers on political issues. If a board member or manager spends a considerable amount of time on social media making political statements, and those statements are attributable to the nonprofit, the organization may come closer to having “lobbying activities” construed as a “substantial part” of their operation.

Fourth, if these policies would be difficult to adopt and/or enforce, consider electing the “expenditure test,” analyzed under IRC § 501h, a viable alternative that has clear cut rules based on a scale directly related to a nonprofit’s total expenditures.

Conclusion

To the extent board members and managers get excited about participating in certain campaigns (electoral or regarding a specific issue), they must have clear boundaries around their personal statements and those made on behalf of the organization.

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The current U.S. administration’s rampant changes to laws have been getting a lot of media attention, which has also had the effect of boosting online donations. In fact, nonprofits usually see donation spikes for 72 hours after major press coverage. For instance, recent changes to immigration policies have put the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in the spotlight, which has resulted in huge donation spikes.

Another trend that nonprofits are seeing under President Trump’s administration is what some are calling “outrage giving,” or when online donations come flooding in because donors are fired up on a certain topic. A great example of this is when folks thought a budget proposal would cut funding for Meals on Wheels. Meals on Wheels typically received around $1,000 a day in unsolicited online donations, but when the budget news broke, they received more than $160,000 in just a few days.

Your organization or cause can quickly become the subject of unexpected media attention, so make sure you are armed with the best digital marketing strategies when it does. Here are a few tactics to consider ahead of time:

#1. Optimize for Mobile or Risk Becoming Irrelevant

When donors see something on social media or in their emails, they are likely reading it on a smartphone; therefore, when they feel motivated to give, it’s critical that your organization’s donation form have a secure and fast mobile checkout experience. According to Dunham & Company, 25% of donors say they have already used their smartphone to give through a charity’s website, and that number is growing! If your site’s donation form isn’t mobile-compatible, you might be making it difficult for your donors to support you.

How can your nonprofit organization ensure that your donation forms work on smartphones and tablets? The answer is mobile responsive design – a way of building a webpage so that content and images are automatically sized to the screen size you’re browsing on. Responsive design is why some webpages look great on both your smartphone and your laptop. A lack of responsive design means that a web page might look fine on your computer, but squished and unintelligible on your smartphone. A design that looks good on smartphones won’t slow down donors and avoids lowering your conversion rate.

For nonprofits, email is the top converting online channel, and most emails are read on mobile devices. Every time you send an email appeal, make sure the “donate now” button leads to a mobile responsive donation form. This ensures everyone will be able to give, no matter what device they’re using to read your content.

Not sure if your donation form is mobile responsive? Do a periodic check at the office to see if your donation pages work on different devices. Get your staff to see how they look, preferably across a range of smartphone models or tablets. Don’t forget to fill in the forms and click through as far as possible.

Big Tip: The majority of your followers on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are also reading your content on a smartphone. Anything that a charity posts on social networks must be accessible for mobile browsers, or you run the risk of lowering your call-to-action’s conversion rate.

#2. Email Segmentation Sets You Apart

According to the 2016 M+R benchmarks study, email marketing accounted for more than a third (34%) of online revenue for the top 25 nonprofits. Yet in a digital age full of online noise, effective email marketing can be tricky.

Segmentation is essential when communicating with your donors. It allows you to send potential new donors and repeat donors relevant messaging.

Effective segmentation and personalization goes beyond including a donor’s name in your email content. For instance, if you have a pool of loyal monthly donors, does your email asking them to sign an emergency petition include messaging that recognizes their incredible support so far this year? Generic messaging is less persuasive and leaves donors feeling like they’re just one of thousands on your mailing list.

Maximizing the persuasive power of your content is crucial for charities and nonprofits because your supporters are increasingly choosing to respond to donation requests by email. The Dunham & Company study above found that the percentage of donors motivated by an email to give online has jumped 40% since 2015!

When you unexpectedly find yourself in the limelight, make sure you are able to email the right supporters quickly – even on a weekend.

Big Tip: Make sure your donor management platform allows you to generate relevant supporter lists quickly and easily from any location! When you have important news to share, you may not have the time to wait until Monday morning to get your e-blasts out.

#3. Instagram Has The Eyeballs

Facebook is still a huge driver of donations, but Instagram hit the 700 million users mark and is projected to have a billion users by the end of this year!

Perhaps more crucial than number of users is the amount of time spent on the platform. Instagram users aged 25 years and over now “spend more than 24 minutes a day” on the app. That’s a lot of potential for your content to be seen, shared, and acted upon!

If you work for a nonprofit, expand your social footprint to include Instagram – after all, if you find yourself in the limelight, you’re going to want to already have a presence on the platform.

As with any fundraising effort, you don’t want to jump right in and immediately start asking for donations. Wired Impact suggests that you attach a solid story to every Instagram post you make, and to “tell the part of the story a visitor would never know from looking at the picture.”

Instagram isn’t just about photos and captions – the platform also allows for live-streaming and uploading videos as well. It’s a good option if you want to create more dynamic content to really help tell your nonprofit’s story. The live-streaming feature can be used to broadcast your events or activities, telling your audience what’s happening as it happens. Here’s 5 things your charity can do with live-streaming right now!

When you have something important or time-sensitive to communicate, put resources behind it to boost it!  According to the 2017 Global NGO Online Technology Report, 34% of NGOs worldwide have paid for advertising on social media.

Big Tip: You already know that Facebook can boost your posts for a fee – Instagram can do the same thing. Target your sponsored posts at specific demographics, reaching the right audiences with your messaging. If your cause is in the news, place a sponsored Instagram post and use the appropriate hashtag to catch attention from potential supporters on the app. Instagram advertising has a variety of useful call-to-action items you can use to drive traffic to your donation or petition pages, including “Sign Up” / “Learn More” / “Donate Now” and more!

Is your nonprofit effectively maximizing social media? If not, you are missing out on the most effective way to amplify your nonprofit’s mission and build an audience of evangelists for your purpose.

Social media isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it’s only developing at a faster rate than ever, and smart nonprofits are keeping up.

Whether you are a beginner or a social media veteran, here are six steps to jumpstart your nonprofit’s social media presence.

1. Decide your voice

The beauty of social media is that it gives anyone the opportunity to start a conversation with anyone, anywhere. However, this beauty can become ugly when the conversation becomes noisy and crowded.

The first step to nonprofits rising above the noise by effectively using social media is deciding their voice. This process starts offline with the leadership team establishing the organization’s mission, vision, and values. From there, your team can decide your nonprofit’s voice as you decide which conversations you would like to champion.

Decide which conversations your nonprofit would like to engage and be clear with a consistent voice when you engage those conversations. Engaging in the conversation isn’t enough – you need to lead it. Become the thought leader in your nonprofit’s market by using your voice through social media to help you establish your platform. The more specific you can be about your voice within the conversation, the greater success you will have in rising above the noise.

2. Establish your presence

I’ve heard some people recommend to only choose one or two social media platforms and be consistent with those. I disagree. In 2015, when social media, texting, and emailing are the most common ways of communication, every nonprofit should have a presence on the most common social media platforms.

As of today, those platforms are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Instagram. I want to take a moment to specifically speak to Google+. While most people do not use Google+ to correspond with others on a daily basis, you must make posting via Google+ a priority. It is a key factor in establishing your organization’s presence in search engine results, increasing your visibility in prime online real estate.

When establishing your presence on social media, register with branded usernames to maintain brand consistency among your channels. Social media is changing daily, and these platforms will not be the most common forever. This is why you need someone on your team who is responsible for managing your nonprofit’s online community and keeping up with new trends.

3. Hire someone to own it

Simply signing up for these social media platforms and posting every once in a while doesn’t cut it. The key to success on social media is consistency. In our work helping faith-based nonprofits find their key staff, one of the most common searches we are conducting right now are marketing and communications staff members. Smart nonprofits are hiring a digital native with a marketing mind who is responsible for building community through social media. This team member is focused on growing the nonprofit’s presence and curating its conversation online.

As a leader, equip your social media manager with the tools he or she needs to succeed. There are many tools on the market like HubSpot, HootSuite, and Buffer that can help your social media manager maximize his or her efforts.

4. Share thought provoking content

If your nonprofit isn’t already blogging, start now. Then, share your content via your social media channels. If you’re just getting started, my recommendation is as follows:

• Twitter – tweet at least 9-12 times a day
• Google+, LinkedIn, and Facebook – share at least 1 content item a day
• Instagram – post at least 1 photo per week

Sharing your own content isn’t enough to build a substantial following on social media. Find other organizations that align with yours that are creating content and begin sharing it. As you share aligning organizations’ content, they will likely begin sharing yours as well. This will help build your audience through other networks that align with yours.

5. Build community

Once you have chosen the conversation you want to engage, setup your accounts, and have a person who is responsible for building your platforms, start building community online. The primary way to start building community online is to engage in conversation that builds community among your nonprofit’s target audience.

If you’re starting from scratch, the fastest way to begin building an audience is to invite those who are already a part of your community to join you on social media by using the following tips:

• Send an email to your nonprofit’s contacts and invite them to join each of your social media platforms
• Make it easy for people to find you by adding social media icons with links to your channels on every page of your website
• Add sharing buttons to every email you send to encourage people to share your content through social media

Once you have invited your own network to join you online, start expanding outside of your current network by applying the following tips:

• Choose keywords that align with your nonprofit’s target audience and add/invite people who have those keywords in their profiles
• Find hashtags that align with the above keywords, add/invite people who are using those hashtags, and use those hashtags as you share your content
• Ask your current audience to engage in social media contests. It might be something like, “We’ll choose 5 people who share this post with our username to win ____.”

6. Experiment with advertising

Once you have the basics of your social media platform established, begin experimenting with social media advertising. My recommendation is to begin with Facebook and Twitter. Use the Power Editor on Facebook to create several ads at once to reach specific audiences. Use Twitter cards and promote sponsored tweets to a tailored audience with interests that align with your organization.

Start small when you begin advertising with social media. Success will look different for every nonprofit, so take time to analyze your results and tweak them as necessary.