How do you use live streaming to raise awareness and funds for social causes?

In my experience, choosing a cause that you want to go in more detail is important. By aligning your values and goals with a cause, you’ll be able to create meaningful content that engages your viewers and raises awareness. When it comes to platforms, consider where your target audience is. Where are you building a community? Each platform has its own unique features, so choose one that allows you to showcase your skills effectively. Remember to also explore the technical requirements and community guidelines of each platform to ensure a smooth and enjoyable streaming experience.

In my experience, it's important to be strategic with planning out your content, goals, and engaging with others. Post content that aligns with your cause and resonates with your audience. For example, if you’re raising funds for a charity, you could stream interviews with beneficiaries or showcase projects in action. Set realistic goals, whether it’s raising a specific amount of money or reaching a certain number of viewers. To track progress, you can use analytics tools to measure donations, viewer engagement, or social media reach. Remember to communicate your impact to your audience through updates and gratitude.

Many businesses can engage their current circles to advocate for your cause on live streams. Partnering elevates your reach - connect with influencers and news platforms that resonate with your mission. A key example is Lancaster Connects in Lancaster, PA, which spotlights nonprofits and charities in every episode. By linking them with businesses and featuring their success stories live, they exemplify the power of community collaboration. Many people want to support local businesses, non profit organizations and charities - they just need more awareness and your live stream can accomplish that.

I once hosted a live Charity Book Auction on a LinkedIn Live. An author in my network wanted to auction off 10 signed copies of their book with the proceeds going to a charity we both supported. We worked together to create a buzz about the upcoming Live Book Auction. Our promotion consisted of several LinkedIn posts and even a promo video to get folks excited. Come the day of the live auction, we had so many people join us live. We even had a guest "auctioneer" attend the live to add a bit of fun and novelty to the event. And an admin on the live stream to run the bidding. The key to our success was asking people to help us spread the word and choosing a cause our audience was familiar with and wanted to help.

Promoting your live streaming and cause is important. If you are only on LinkedIn, definitely consider building on another platform that may have your audience to building up your email list. By getting the word out on different platforms, it does gets more visibility to what you are doing. Ive been promoting my live show on IG, LinkedIn, FB, and X formally called X. Plus you can take the episode and turn it into a podcast episode.

Now that you have promoted the live, it's time to go live! When you talk to the audience, it makes it fun! When you encourage connecting with others then you are helping with building community. Plus everyone loves to win a prize during a time of raising money. Make sure everyone is having fun and so are you!

After you have completed the live, make sure to thank all who donated, attended, supported. You can do a shout out post; email, even blog. Everyone likes to feel they contributed in some way and love being recognized.