Best Practices for Fundraising on Facebook

Marketing and Social Media

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Facebook Fundraisers, the tool that allows people to raise money for their favorite nonprofits, has been around for a few years now and has helped countless nonprofits raise crucial funds. If your organization hasn’t tried a Facebook fundraiser yet, you should! It’s an easy way to meet your supporters where they are. You may even reach new donors interested in supporting causes like yours. Not sure where to begin? Use our Facebook fundraising best practices to get started!

Get signed up to fundraise on Facebook

Just because you have a nonprofit page on Facebook doesn’t mean you get instant access to Facebook’s fundraising tools. Your first step toward starting a Facebook fundraising campaign is to go through the process of verifying your nonprofit status with Facebook. For a more in depth look at what that process entails, check out Facebook’s nonprofit help pages. Give yourself plenty of time. The process can take multiple days before you’re approved.

Use your branding on your Facebook fundraiser

While customization options are limited, you can make sure your Facebook fundraiser is easily recognizable by your supporters. Incorporate your logo and organization name in the header image of your Facebook fundraiser. Also, make sure the image you’re using for the header is relevant to the work your organization does. Not only is this one of the best pratices for fundraising on Facebook, it’s an overall fundraising best practice. Always add your branding to all donation forms and appeals.

A trick to incorporating more of your branding is to share images and videos from your organization in fundraiser update posts. For still images, place your logo somewhere within the image. For video, you can incorporate your logo in the beginning and ending frames.

Share your Facebook fundraiser

Just setting up a Facebook fundraiser isn’t enough. You need to share your fundraiser with your supporters to receive donations and reach new audiences. An easy way to accomplish this is to create a post with a link to your Facebook fundraiser on your organization’s Facebook Page. Go the extra mile and pin your Facebook fundraiser post as the top post on your Page until the fundraiser ends.

Ask your staff and supporters to share the link to your Facebook fundraiser (and donate too, of course!). Having your followers share your fundraiser helps it get in front of people outside your immediate social network. When donors share a campaign they’ve given to, it provides social proof that helps convince others to give, too.

Make sure you’re also linking to your organization’s fundraising page on your webpage. This way, visitors to your website can easily find and give to your Facebook page. Sharing your Facebook fundraiser is key to getting most out of your Facebook fundraiser.

Post regular updates to your Facebook fundraiser

Keep your Facebook fundraising campaign top of mind by posting regularly. This Facebook fundraising best practice keeps your fundraiser from disappearing from your Facebook Timeline. Posts to your fundraiser can share fundraising milestones or act as motivation for your supporters to give. Encourage your audience to reach out to you on Facebook if they have questions. Engage with your supporters who have given or commented on your fundraiser. Images and short videos get great engagement on Facebook. It’s helpful to share images or short video clips showing the work your nonprofit does and what your donors are supporting. If you don’t have a lot of recent photos, now’s the time to make taking new photos a priority!

An easy way to post images or video content regularly is to take a photo or short video of your development staff filling in an analog fundraising thermometer as gifts come in. If you’re using a digital thermometer like the ones in the Qgiv platform, try posting screenshots of your thermometer’s progress toward your goal! Another easy option is posting thank-you messages to individuals who gave to your fundraiser. An added benefit of the latter option is you get to make individual donors feel seen and appreciated (so long as they don’t wish to remain anonymous).

Publicly thank Facebook fundraiser donors

One really great thing about Facebook Fundraisers is having the ability to comment on your fundraiser. As donations come in, take note of which supporters gave to you and publicly thank them on your Facebook Fundraiser. Engage your donors in conversations centered on your gratitude for their support. This makes your donors feel great and these expressions of gratitude can also make others feel great about choosing to support you.

When you’re thanking your donors, use inclusive language as well. This means letting donors know what they accomplished. Rather than saying “This fundraiser helped us provide 200 lunches to kids who wouldn’t otherwise get a lunch,” make it the donors’ accomplishment! For example, a phrase like, “Thanks for donating! You helped us provide 200 lunches to kids who wouldn’t eat otherwise” better highlights what donors made possible. Using “you” language more than “we” language makes your donor the hero. More importantly, this language expresses the importance and value of their continued giving.

Tie your Facebook fundraiser to your virtual events

With Facebook Live and Facebook Events, hosting a virtual event has never been simpler. You can offer your supporters a one stop shop in terms of ways to support your organization! First, you could use Facebook Events to create an event supporters can sign up to support. After that, reach new supporters by promoting the event via Facebook ads or sharing the event and asking others to share it as well.

Your event could be a live performance, a Q&A session with a member of your staff, a facility tour, a virtual auction– the possibilities are limitless! While you’re broadcasting live using Facebook Live, you can refer to your Facebook Fundraiser or provide another way for those who tuned in to support your organization. You can share a simple URL to your donation form (like www.lfp.org/donate) or incorporate text fundraising by sharing your keyword and the number to text to make a gift.

Alternatively, ask for support for your Facebook fundraiser and share how to find it with your supporters. When asking for support, know who you’re asking and what messaging they’re most likely to respond to.

Integrate your virtual peer-to-peer events with Facebook

Integrate Facebook fundraising and Qgiv

Qgiv has an integration with Facebook fundraisers! Virtual event participants can fundraise on Facebook and apply those donations to personal and event fundraising goals. Encourage your supporters to take advantage of the integration so they have an easier time keeping their fundraising progress consistent as they engage in cross-platform fundraising!

Your nonprofit will benefit from this alongside your donors. Their Facebook fundraising campaigns will be applied to your overall event fundraising goal so you can easily track the progress of your virtual fundraising events. In addition to tracking your progress toward your fundraising goal, the integration gives your virtual peer-to-peer events even greater portability. You can set up a peer-to-peer page in Qgiv and host it on your website while simultaneously supporting the same campaign on Facebook. This increases the odds your virtual event will get noticed and be supported.

Conclusion

Facebook fundraisers are a great complement to existing online fundraising tools. By adhering to these best practices for fundraising on Facebook, nonprofits are able to raise significant funds. Therefore, nonprofits need to know how to get their Facebook fundraiser in front of their supporters and their supporters’ social networks to be successful. Incorporating these Facebook fundraising best practices will get more eyes on your Facebook fundraising campaigns, Facebook Live broadcasts, and Facebook events.

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