EP 66 | Using Social Media Fundraising Tools

This article was originally posted on thefirstclick.net/podcast. Listen to the podcast episode there.

"Anyone that has used Facebook in the last year or two has most certainly seen a Facebook fundraiser. You know, its those posts when you open up your feed and you see that your friend or your family member has launched a Facebook fundraiser in support of an organization. And has basically set up a goal, maybe it's a hundred dollars or something like that to have their community and their peer network contribute to support that organization.

So really, it's a peer-to-peer fundraising strategy that's baked in natively into the Facebook platform. You don't have to leave Facebook, you know. Some more traditional digital fundraising for non-profits would take you off of Facebook. Bring you to their website. And then someone would fill out a form on the website to donate. With Facebook fundraisers you don't have to leave Facebook." – Steven Aguiar

Have you seen people on Facebook with the donation posts. Did you know it's super easy to leverage your audience to help raise funds for your organization, or even host an online fundraiser yourself using Facebook?

Steven Aguiar is here today to share with us some ways to leverage this feature and get out there in front of new audiences.

 In this episode you'll learn:

→ Why Facebook fundraisers work.

→ Ways to leverage birthday's and holidays 

→ Holding fundraisers from your non-profit Facebook page – or getting other business to do one for you as well.

→ How to make it easy for people to create the fundraiser.

→ Data you get from the fundraisers

→ Using the Instagram stories donation feature

→ YouTube fundraising, is it for you?

Want to skip ahead? Here are some key takeaways:

[8:38] When you see someone you know and trust, or a family member, holding an online fundraiser on Facebook you're more likely to donate quickly. It's easy to do and you feel like you're supporting that important person in your life, just as much as the organization.

[11:32] We all love a reason to celebrate. And that's a perfect time for people to ask their friends and family to ask for donations in lieu of gifts. Share ideas with your board, volunteers and team to get the word out about creating Facebook fundraisers for your organization.

[13:17] Non-profits can also hold fundraisers from there business Facebook pages. Other business pages can also hold fundraisers for a non-profit.

[15:33] Make it easy on people. Create all the tools and assets they need to execute the fundraiser. Write email copy and social posts that they easily copy and paste. Add a call-to-action in your donor emails to ask them to set up a fundraiser to bring more people to your organization.

[17:13] Make sure you engage and communicate with people that are giving inside of a Facebook fundraiser. Don't miss the opportunity to take people deeper into your organization and make them raving fans.

[18:40] One downside is that you don't get the names of those that donated to the campaign. This is due to privacy laws. But it's still a great addition to add to your fundraising toolbox.

[22:31] Facebook, at the moment doesn't take a percentage or charge a fee when you run a fundraiser from your business page. However, for peer to peer fundraisers Facebook will take a small fee which is 3% (similar to typical credit card processing fees).

[24:15] Instagram stories has a Donation sticker that you can use to raise funds for a non-profit. It's not as successful and goes away after 24 hours but still a great way to shed light on non-profit organizations.

[31:46] YouTube fundraising is popping up more and more as more celebrities are hosting their shows from home. You need to have 100,000 subscribers in order to unlock that feature. You can, however, apply to be one of the eligible non-profits for people to select for their fundraiser.

Resources

[Guide] 9 Ways for Non-Profits to Raise More Money Online

Good United 

Good Goes Further Facebook Group

Steven Aguiar

Position: I am a full-stack digital marketer and founder of BlueWing and Good Goes Further. I have deep experience using paid media to drive positive outcomes for businesses and mission-driven organizations.

Early in my career, I managed social media and audience development for independent and venture-backed publishing startups, where I cut my teeth as a one-man digital marketing department. Now four years into my consulting journey, I have worked with dozens of companies to grow and convert an audience throughout the entire marketing funnel. I have a BA from Brown University and am a Facebook, Google and HubSpot-certified professional. Learn more about Good Goes Further.

Full Transcript

[INTRO] Hey there, Sami here with another episode of the Digital Marketing Therapy podcast. And I'm excited today to talk to you about how to use social media platforms for your fundraising goals in a very specific way. Most of what we're talking about today is all about how to use Facebook to get donations for your organization. And it's a great way to use and leverage your existing audience to get people to ask their friends and families to donate, and to raise some additional funds for your organization when some of your typical fundraisers can't happen these days, and hopefully, a practice that you take in as part of your strategy in the long run.

And I brought in Steven Aguiar to talk with you about this because he is an expert in all this and we had a great conversation is super fun conversation about all the ways you can leverage some of these fundraising tools.

Steven is a full-stack digital marketer and founder of Blue Wing and Good Goes Further. He has a deep experience using paid media to drive positive outcomes for businesses and mission-driven organizations. Early in his career, he managed social media and audience development for independent and venture-backed publishing startups, where he cut his teeth as a one-man digital marketing department. Now, four years into his consulting journey, he's worked with dozens of companies to grow and convert an audience throughout the entire marketing funnel. He has a BA from Brown University and is a Facebook, Google and HubSpot certified professional.

I really hope you like some of the ideas that we bring into this episode. But before we get to it, this episode is brought to you by my new well ebook, workbook, guide. Let's call it a guide, my new guide, “9 Ways for NonProfits to Raise More Money Online.” And you can find this at https://thefirstclick.net/fundraise. Now there are nine tools in here You do not need to use all nine In fact, I don't recommend doing all nine at once. But there's lots of good stuff in here. So head on over to https://thefirstclick.net/fundraise to grab this guide, take a look, figure it out, what's going to be the best quick win for you, and I hope you enjoy it. Now let's get into this episode.

[CANNED INTRODUCTION] You're listening to the digital Marketing Therapy Podcast. I'm your host, Sami Bedell-Mulhern. And each week, I bring you tips from myself and other experts, as well as hot seats with small business owners and entrepreneurs to demystify digital marketing and get you on your way to generating more leads and growing your business.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Hey, everybody, I'd like to welcome Steven Aguiar to the podcast today.

[STEVEN AGUIAR] Hello. Hi, Sami. Nice to be here.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah, thank you so much for joining us. And I'd like to just start I mean, I kind of introduced everybody to who you are a little bit of your background, but why nonprofit why growth marketing kind of? Why is that where you landed?

[STEVEN AGUIAR] Yeah. Really good question. So I started my first business, my digital marketing consultancy BlueWing four years ago. And one of my first clients that I worked with was the Innocence Project. So just sort of happened organically that one of my first clients happened to be a nonprofit. But what I've noticed over the last four years, and I've ended up working with a lot of other nonprofits is that there's a lot of growth marketing stuff that they could be doing that they aren't taking advantage of. So a lot of stuff that I've been helping my nonprofit clients do is you know, drive brand awareness for their causes online, grow their email list, and then ultimately drive more revenue through these different growth marketing tactics. And there's obviously a lot of different growth marketing tactics on pack.

We do a lot of paid advertising, for example, email marketing, CRM, consulting, stuff like that. But they're just generally seems to be a big need a lot of nonprofits and you know, they're not they're not the only industry. I'm not trying to pick on them or anything but you know, they have an older school mentality as far as fundraising goes, and there's so many new tools out there, it's really hard even as a professional Digital Marketer to keep up with. So really what we want to do is come to them and help them out and help them sort of stay on the cutting edge of how they can be growing their footprint and driving more revenue online.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] I agree 100% with the there's it's hard to keep up with all of the digital options for people. And, you know, I know we're gonna talk all about how to use social media for fundraising. But why do you think that being on social media is such a struggle for so many nonprofits? Like it's such a brain hurdle? Almost, it feels like

[STEVEN AGUIAR] Um, I think, I mean, from my perspective, nonprofits are risk averse, right? I think there's there's sort of a fundamental calculus with their revenue and the money they have is with every dollar. Do we invest into what we do?

Like, say you're a food bank or something, right? You know, do you take that dollar that you have and just buy the food for the people that you're serving? Or do you take that dollar and invested in communications? You know, whether that's hiring comm staff, you know, Facebook advertising, Google advertising, you know, any sort of comm strategy, with the ultimate goal of trying to get more out of that dollar, right, because you want to spend that dollar on comms, but ultimately get more revenue in today, you can then deliver on your mission.

So I think that's a real, you know, struggle for nonprofits to figure out what sort of the risk-reward trade-off between taking the money they have and investing directly into their mission, versus investing and communications and figuring out what sort of ROI or growth they can get out of it. So I think, you know, my my point of view, obviously, is I think there's a lot of ways nonprofits can take They're the revenue some of the room some of the revenue they have invest in bigger growth for the future.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah, I agree. I agree. And the thing for me was Social Media for Nonprofits and where I feel like they're really missing, the potential is they've got the population that they serve. So whether it be the fur baby's parents, or the youth or you know, Food Bank, whatever, you've got the population you serve, you've got the volunteers that support your organization. You've got your board members, and you've got your staff. And if you can leverage that correctly, you've got a whole audience that can amplify your, your mission and your vision on social media.

[STEVEN AGUIAR] Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, that sort of combined network can be really powerful if used correctly and you know, Facebook fundraisers are a perfect example of a tool that you can use

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] And then now being that many organizations have had to change their fundraising plans. It seems like Facebook fundraising could be a great, easy, no cost opportunity to do that, right?

[STEVEN AGUIAR] Absolutely. Um, you know, Facebook fundraisers came on the scene, I want to say, at least a year ago, probably probably around two years ago at this point. And if anyone has used Facebook in the last year or two, you've you've most most certainly seen a Facebook fundraiser.

You know, it's those those posts when you open up your feed, and you see that your friend or your family member is as long as the Facebook fundraiser in support of an organization and is trying to, you know, has basically sets up a goal, maybe it's $100 or something like that, to have their their community and their their peer network contribute to support that organization. So really, it's it's it's a peer to peer fundraising strategy that's baked in natively into the Facebook platform. You don't have to leave Facebook, you know, some some, you know, some more, I guess traditional digital fundraising on nonprofits would, you know, take you off of Facebook, bring you to their website, and then someone would, you know, fill out a form on the website to donate. with Facebook fundraisers, you don't have to leave Facebook.

And typically, after you give that first donation, Facebook holds on to your credit card information. So that way, it just becomes so much more frictionless to give again,

There's also the peer effect or sort of social proof effect that comes along with Facebook fundraisers, right? So when you see that your mom or your uncle or whoever is doing a Facebook fundraiser, not only are you going to give just because you want to support the organization, you're going to give because you want to support the cause that your friend or relative cares about.

So it creates a really sort of nice virtuous cycle where people are donating to foundations to like help the help the nonprofit foundation, but also like support the causes that the people in their network care about.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah, I think that's what's the most powerful thing is when you have your friends and family that you trust, and they are supporting that organization, you're automatically like, Oh, I need to if you've never heard of them, like, Oh, I need to know more about that if they care about it.

[STEVEN AGUIAR] Yeah, it's kind of like having a friend like send you a playlist to their favorite songs I trust because their taste, then you'll sort of dive right in. I think with Facebook fundraisers. I know personally, I've given some fundraisers without even visiting the nonprofit's website just because then the person I know, that's launching it, like I know and trust them, and I know that they would want to give to a good cause. And I want to support them. And I'll give $20 without even thinking about it, you know?

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN]  Well, and one thing I love about leveraging Facebook fundraisers with individuals is you might have people in your community that can't afford to donate to the organization, but love and appreciate and are like raving fans of what you do. And that's a great way for them to support your organization without having, you know, they could still give and raise money for your organization without having to pay themselves.

[STEVEN AGUIAR] If they can, absolutely. Yeah. You know, we definitely recommend, you know, for what it's worth to have nonprofits when they sort of asked their community to help seed the fundraiser, I think, I don't know the numbers directly off the top of my head, but I know there is some research that if a fundraiser starts with say five out of $100 already filled, you sort of want to seed the pot, right, you know, think about it as like a, you know, a tip jar at the coffee shop or a musician in the street with, you know, a tip jar out and they're playing guitar, they pepper the jar, you know, with a few bucks, people see that there's some donation of some momentum there and they're more inclined to give

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Well it's the same as when you run your fundraiser your gala, right? You have plants, typically for your paddle raise to get the momentum and things, same kind of concept, right?

[STEVEN AGUIAR] So I agree that, you know, you're definitely spot on as far as like, if you can't give that much yourself, it's a great way to still make a bigger impact. Because, you know, maybe you can only give a few bucks, but you know, you want to pepper the jar, and then get it get out your community. And then maybe that $5 donation you would have made by yourself. Now it turns into $100 that you're able to give back to the organization.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] That's awesome. What other like fun examples, have you seen where people have said, you know, this is why I'm doing like, you know, birthdays, celebrations, whatever. Has there been any unique kind of ways that you've seen people have good success with getting traction?

[STEVEN AGUIAR] Yeah, birthdays are huge. I think that was sort of a little bit baked into Facebook's algorithm. You know, when people it was your birthday, I think they would sort of go into your feed and say like, hey, it's your birthday. You should do a fundraiser for a cause you care about Yeah. Which is why I think there are so many birthday ones, you know, all the time.

But I think anytime you can find a reason, like whether it's a news, a piece of information in the news, a news article, you know, end of year is huge, you know, people want to get their donations in at the end of December so that they can deduct it from their taxes.

Giving Tuesday, obviously is huge. You know, those, those are sort of the events that I would look for. And then, you know, obviously, any other personal events you look for in your life, whether it's an anniversary, you know, if it's, you know, just throwing this out there, like say, for example, you're sick and you're eventually cured or became healthy, you can, you know, do a fundraiser around the anniversary of the day, you're clear to cancer or something like that. So I'm just, you know, sort of spitballing here, but I think, you know, there's the major sort of, you know, end of your GivingTuesday, which are huge in the nonprofit cal, marketing calendar. There's personal birthdays and anniversaries. And then you also just think about sort of, you know, news items and things happening in the world. They might be able to peg your fundraiser to.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] So pay attention to kind of the audience you serve, like. So if you're an environmental organization, it might be Earth Day.

[STEVEN AGUIAR] Yeah, yeah. It's a great, great example for sure.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Okay. And now can nonprofits set up their own fundraiser on their page? Or does it have to be an individual doing it on behalf of a nonprofit,

[STEVEN AGUIAR] A nonprofit can a nonprofit concept throw fundraiser on their page. And we definitely recommend doing that. Peer to Peer is also great. Obviously, that's when like, sort of, you know, it's more grassroots its users on Facebook. The other thing to consider is that any page can set up a nonprofit fundraiser for a nonprofit.

So another thing I've seen be really effective is like having a nonprofit reach out to influencers. Maybe celebrity ambassadors or something like that. And they can set up a fundraiser through their page and they might even have a bigger you know, social footprint than the nonprofit itself. So those are probably the three main ways I would recommend thinking about it as far as, like different tiers of who can who can run them for you.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] So could so let's say you're running, let's say you're doing an event or your I mean, I know we can't really do big events anymore. But let's just for sake of that, let's say you have a company who wants to sponsor you your event or sponsor something, but they can't necessarily pay for the whole thing. Could they potentially also raise funds in that way to just show support for the organization then, like just being creative and thinking outside the box when you're when you're going after corporate sponsorships?

[STEVEN AGUIAR] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think I've seen I've seen examples where, you know, a company approaches a nonprofit and says, Hey, we want to help out. And they might do something where, you know, they donate X amount of money, but then they launch a Facebook fundraiser, to have their employees match the funds. So that way, you know, the company itself is donating but then they're also getting their employees involved in doubling the impact. And Facebook fundraisers are a great way to sort of do that without, you know, the technical heavy lifting of managing it through a website or some other platform.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] That's a good idea. I hadn't thought about it for a matching can imagine a situation and then you might get some other customers and, you know, you might get some other residuals in there in the mix as well.

[STEVEN AGUIAR] Yeah, yeah, totally.

Yeah, and one thing I just want to mention, just as far as Facebook, fundraising fundraisers go and then tactics, you know, definitely obviously, you should write a blog post you know, I've worked with my nonprofit clients to write a blog post on their on their websites, how to you know, how to set up a Facebook fundraiser, you know, so you can distribute that through social and through email. So sort of educate your audience on what they are are and that the fact that you kind of set one up one little tactic that I really like actually is you know, when when when donors come in through traditional channels and I'm air quoting, traditional, like, let's say come through your website, and put in their email and give a donation through the credit cards. form on your site. One thing we've done is we'll actually set up a email automation on the back end. Where you know, like when you donate to a nonprofit, you typically get a thank you email for your for your donation. Well, it will include a call to action, that email basically says thank you for giving your your one off donation. Now, you know, would you please consider getting your peers involved in launch a Facebook fundraiser?

Yeah, that way, you know, people come in and they donate, but then you're also giving them another call to action to basically bring that to their community and launch a Facebook fundraiser?

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Well, I think that's the biggest mistake that people make in all businesses, and in all things is we don't ask for what you want them to do next, we kind of take for granted we assume or like hope that they'll do what we want them to do. So I think that's a great tip.

[STEVEN AGUIAR] Yeah, yeah. I mean, you're thinking about, you know, someone that just donated that obviously clearly cares about your organization, and is inspired the moment like it's the perfect time to say, Hey, thank you for donation. Did you know you could also do this to help us? So that's something that, you know, I've seen work really well.

The other thing to keep in mind with Facebook fundraisers is that they're basically their own little sub-communities, right when someone launches a Facebook fundraiser, and people donate, there's like sort of a wall, you know, social wall within or social feed within the fundraiser where people can comment, and stuff like that. So as your you know, from an organizational perspective, I would definitely recommend my clients to be in their community manage the fundraisers, you know, go in there, thank the person who set it up, thank the people who are donating. You know, there's even platforms that exists. You know, I think one that comes to mind that we've used in the past is called Good United. But this is specifically platforms that help nonprofit organizations community manage their Facebook fundraisers, and make sure that everyone that is running a Facebook fundraiser gets a thank you that everyone's contributing to them gets a thank you from the organization and that really helps you know, boost engagement and And then develop that connection with the audience.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] 

Are you telling people to be social on social media?

[STEVEN AGUIAR] Yeah, getting measuring is still a thing. And I think everyone's on, everyone's focusing on content and content production and stuff. But you still got to sort of put in a lot of work just to say thank you. And small enough.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah. Now, that's great. So let's get to kind of a more tactical part of this. Because I think by now, you know, if you don't think that this could be a benefit for your business, then, you know, whatever. But how, so setting it up? And what does it look like as far as like, do I as a nonprofit, then also get that information from those donors so I can send them information so that I can add to my database?

[STEVEN AGUIAR] Yeah. So that's a huge sticking point. I'm happy you raised it. So Facebook fundraisers are an excellent opportunity for revenue for for nonprofits and I haven't met a nonprofit that's going to leave that revenue on the table, right. They're gonna they're good. Take it. But Facebook, you know, they've they've had a lot of struggles with privacy concerns, especially, you know, in the last couple years. And although nonprofits are able to sort of harvest the revenue from these fundraisers, you do not get the face the email or contact information of the actual people donating.

There is an opt in button when people donate to a fundraiser, but in my experience, only about 3% of people that contribute to a Facebook fundraiser, actually opt in to provide their email. So I know like when you when you download basically the spreadsheet, from the back end of Facebook, have your Facebook page with all the Facebook fundraiser data. The email column is pretty much blank. So that's a huge you know, it's a huge concern for nonprofits. I think, you know, they obviously want to, they want to build that database internally. And they want to be able to build a connection with the people who donate to Facebook fundraisers and be able to email know them and build that relationship long term. But I think they really sort of our base, you have to balance like the revenue, the appealing revenue aspects with the fact that they don't get the data.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] So this is where your community manager in that kind of community that gets built off of the fundraisers is super important to get, you know, build that engagement, get them to take additional steps like,

[STEVEN AGUIAR] yeah, that's community manager. Absolutely. And, you know, I've seen the community management sort of cadences or sequences where people will say, thank you for donating, you know, can consider signing up to our email list here. You know, something like that.

The other thing you also can't do with Facebook fundraisers, which I know is a sort of a paid media person I'm itching for is the ability to create a custom audience around a Facebook fundraiser. So you know, you can create a custom audience on Facebook of your website visitors or email list, they can run ads targeting those people. If anyone from Facebook is listening, it would be really really, really cool. If you can create a custom audience of people who've launched a fundraiser or interacted with a fundraiser for the nonprofit so that we can retarget them with a call to action, subscribe to our newsletter, or any other campaigns moving forward. So that definitely is sort of a negative trade off of Facebook fundraisers is that the nonprofit's are not able to get access to that data for the most part. You know, that can only really happen when someone comes through your own website.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] But your access to people and I think the ability to reach hundreds or thousands of people quickly, like you know, like your cost of that donation is so much less. And so right like you're like you said it's a trade-off. But

[STEVEN AGUIAR]  Yeah, it's a trade off. But I think I haven't there's no nonprofit I've worked with it's like, you know, this trade-offs not worth it. We're not gonna do it. It's like, everyone leans in hard. I think to me, it's not either or it's both and yeah, it's both do the Facebook fundraisers really well, like take advantage of the native fabric of the Facebook network and the ability for these fundraisers to go viral and drive a lot of revenue for your company or your nonprofit. But also consider that, you know, you do want to have a base of donors coming in through your website as well that you, you know, can they're able to capture their contact info and build a relationship over time. You know, it's not it's not the only way donors come in, but it's a great way. So, to me, it's not either or, it's it's doing both as best as you can.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] So now, does Facebook take a percentage of the donations or does the organization get the entire amount that's donated?

[STEVEN AGUIAR] My understanding at the moment is that Facebook does not take a percentage of fundraisers that come through your own page, but they do take a small percentage, which is basically typically the standard credit card processing fee of like 3% of peer to peer fundraisers.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN]  Okay, so my as like, as if I'm representing my own organization on my nonprofit page.

[STEVEN AGUIAR] There's no way there's no fees but if you appear to peer one if you made one personally ror a nonprofit, there would be I know in the last couple years that Facebook has waived that fee on GivingTuesday. So and I think ultimately, they do want to waive it hundred percent completely across the board. I think, you know, they're sort of positioning on it from what I've read from their, you know, PR essentially, is that they need a little bit of income to keep this platform self sustaining. They want to keep investing in sort of growing the product and getting it out there. So, and again, it's it's basically aligned with a normal credit card processing fee, which, you know, might get charged any way if someone donates to your website.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yep. Okay. And it's super easy to set up, right?

[STEVEN AGUIAR] Yes, super easy. Um, I think you just need to confirm your 501 (c) 3 , link up your bank account, and you should be off to the races.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] And then how quickly do the funds deposit? Do you happen to know that one?

[STEVEN AGUIAR] I don't know off the top of my head. Good question. Yeah, I don't know off the top my head but

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] I think something that changes.

[STEVEN AGUIAR] I think it changes I think Once a month or something like that, yeah. And that deposit from Facebook, yeah.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Awesome. So I know Instagram, which is also owned by Facebook also has a donate option in within Instagram stories for people.

[STEVEN AGUIAR] They have Yeah, they have stickers. They have donate stickers.

And yeah, those are great, too. We haven't seen, you know that it's harder. You know, with Facebook fundraisers, there's you know, it's sort of a little bit more of an open system you know, you create a fundraiser it's easy to share your feed people share it up to theirs. With stories, you know, the rest is for the people repost stories. Yes, but it's not the same as really trying to be. So it's a little bit more top down. You know, and I would say, but yeah, putting donate stickers on Instagram Stories is another great way for nonprofits to, you know, sort of leverage that organic Instagram following as well.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] And I agree with you, there's something about that, like, that ticker bar that kind of goes Across the Facebook donation button where you can see that goal.

[STEVEN AGUIAR] Yeah, that was that people. Exactly. Yeah.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Is there anything else specifically about Facebook that you think we should mention to folks that might be thinking about running a fundraiser?

[STEVEN AGUIAR] No, I think I think, you know, again, it's, it's something you know, digital marketing is you have to consider all channels. I think all the time. I think Facebook fundraisers are great. But remember that you can't just throw up a fundraiser and expect to be successful, you have to think about how are you using your email lists and your email strategy support. How we're using organic search and social media and influencers and all these other ways of getting things out there to support your Facebook fundraiser strategy. So it's definitely not a magic bullet. You know, make sure you think about it holistically and you should be in good shape.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah, we talk with organizations about creating kind of that swipe copy. So how can you give them social media media content like this specific, like, just copy and paste this text or just copy and paste. Here's your image, like making it easy for people to share and promote.

[STEVEN AGUIAR] Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yes, you have to invest in some, some asset production, you know, things like that.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN]  So what would you say to people that are like two organizations that are saying, Okay, well, we're just really struggling with our messaging right now, or we don't know what to say, or we don't want to come across as trying to get money from people when people are. I mean, there's just a whole lot going on in the world right now. I know. That's a tough question. I'm not gonna I mean, this is totally just like your thoughts. But

[STEVEN AGUIAR] yeah, I don't know if I'm the foremost authority. Uh, you know, I like to think that all you know, it's been a crazy three months. Absolutely. And I like to think that, you know, nonprofits you know, there's some that are doing really well right now. You know, maybe they're their mission sort of perfectly aligns with the COVID health crisis or issues of racial inequality. And, you know, those are the things that are really on top of everyone's mind right now. And, you know, those are the ones that, you know, really should be, you know, in my opinion, putting the pedal to the metal, this is the reason they were created. Right.

So, so, you know, I think for those, like, you know, go nuts, you know, I've seen, I've seen some nonprofits, you know, that are using their platform to help support others, especially ones that are bigger and more stable. I've seen, you know, some of my clients that are they're bigger nonprofits, you know, they're using their platforms to highlight the work of others. You know, like I mentioned, you know, you can create a nonprofit to your page for your own nonprofit, but you could also do it for others. So think about how you can support others.

You know, the other thing is, you know, you have to keep it to keep a long term horizon. You know, I think there's a lot of nonprofits that are struggling right now. Because people are struggling, they're losing their jobs, you know, and things like that. And so you know, a nonprofit that, you know, might be struggling right now, because there's less donations coming in, they're losing their recurring donors, the bigger donors aren't able to give that six-figure check this year, they actually have to cut down there still have a really important mission. You know, I'm just thinking I'm just sort of spitballing here, but think about something like an Alzheimer's, Alzheimer's fund or something like that.

Right, like that work. Although people aren't talking about it, as they are with other issues right now, that there's still a lot of people are still affected by those issues and still need a lot of help. And we can't just forget about, you know, those people that still need help, even though just because they're even though because that nonprofit may not doesn't directly tie into like what people are talking about right now.

You know, so I think you have to have empathy for those people as well. But yeah, it's a really struggling time. And you obviously don't. It's I think, I think it's something that I think as a marketer, you struggle with a lot. Yeah. Like, you know, you almost you almost want to work the way I think about it. It helps me to go to sleep at night, is you want to work yourself out of a job. You know, you want to, you want to go out there and raise as much money as possible, so that you can ultimately solve the problem and shut the nonprofit down because that problem is solved. Right? Unfortunately, that's not the reality. But that's sort of like the extreme situation, I think I have to like, sort of get motivated and get inspired to raise as much money as possible for my nonprofit clients. And really help them be successful.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] That's a great way to think about it. And I also think, you know, the period that's the beauty of the peer to peer on Facebook as well is if you can, you know, get that messaging out to you. your existing audience and have them do it for you feels more and is more genuine. Because these are people like for example, if we go back to your Alzheimers example, if we have families that are that have loved ones that are battling Alzheimer's, if they go out and share that story about their family member, it is more genuine and real. Yeah, especially right now, as opposed to you as an organization going out and asking for money.

[STEVEN AGUIAR] And those issues. I mean, it's almost like what, who's not affected at this point by either COVID or racial quality? Right. I mean, someone who's flagged as Alzheimer's, you know, is being affected in different ways right now, you know, whether it's, you know, that so you need to think, you know, bigger picture. These are things that affect everybody, no matter who you are. And, you know, as long as you're just trying your best to make a positive impact, you know, across the board. Don't I think, you know, don't be shy. Yeah, we asked for help. Whether you're, you know, personally or even if your organization and use it to.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah. Okay, well, let's get on to a less heavy subject because input is so important. It's so important. It's just like, Yeah, um, yeah, I don't know. I it's it's heavy these days. And I think it's important for nonprofits and businesses alike to just remember that you're doing amazing work. You just like you said, even if it's not the spotlight right now, yeah, the long game and your work is still important. It needs to be shared.

[STEVEN AGUIAR] Absolutely.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Okay, so let's talk about and let's just talk briefly about YouTube fundraising, because I've seen that pop up, you know, like, all of the late-night shows that are doing it from home like all of these different kind of big media players. You see now that they have on their on their YouTube videos, these fundraisers, so what about and kind of How do we use that? If we can?

[STEVEN AGUIAR] Yeah, so you had mentioned that you've seen sort of late-night shows, you know, YouTube fundraisers, they're they're a little bit sort of more restricted than Facebook fundraisers. You know, anyone could open a Facebook account and watch Facebook fundraiser on YouTube needs to have 100,000 subscribers. And you needs to be United States United Kingdom or Canada, whatever, for that matters. But you need to have the key metric here. You need to have 100,000 subscribers in order to launch a YouTube fundraiser.

You also YouTube has a list of approved nonprofits that you can run a Facebook fundraiser for or sorry, YouTube fundraiser for. So you want to make sure that your nonprofit is on that list. So that is actually an option for someone with 100,000 subscribers to select a nonprofit.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN]Anybody apply to be on that list?

[STEVEN AGUIAR] Yes, yes, yes.

And so that's really the thing to think about. You know, maybe you're lucky in your nonprofit organization has 100,000 subscribers. I think that's really just a small 1%.

So really think about it from an influencer play. Think about think about it as who, who, what celebrity or YouTube influencer might have a personal stake in your issue, and would be interested in doing a fundraiser for you. So really, you know, again, it's sort of more of a top down situation. It's really about, you know, one popular YouTube channel, amplifying your nonprofit and creating a revenue channel through their show or their live stream to donate to yours.

So it's a little bit less peer to peer. It's a little bit less distributed. It's a little bit more gated. But yeah, it can be really effective. If you get that right partner

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] And a nonprofit doesn't have to have a YouTube channel in order to be an approved nonprofit.

[STEVEN AGUIAR] I do not believe so. Yeah,

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] yeah, but I agree with you going back I like that micro-influencer and how you how you leverage your audience. It might take a little bit more research and some time but finding those people that can support you. And again, it's it's a similar peer to peer type situation, right? If I as the influencer share this as a fundraiser people are more likely to give because they already liked that person.

[STEVEN AGUIAR] Yeah, yeah, exactly. So yeah, I think there's still a lot of benefits around social proof and like, the easy way to get to the platform. It's a little bit more of an exclusive club. Um, so yeah, that was, that's how I think it's primarily different than Facebook fundraising.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] And so then the reason and just kind of all together between Facebook and YouTube, I assume Facebook, because you mentioned earlier, you have to apply on Facebook, to be able to run fundraisers as well and then that just guarantees and then the funds that are donated go directly to that nonprofit as opposed to like if I run a personal one, it doesn't come to me and that I have to give that money to the nonprofit

[STEVEN AGUIAR] No, no, no, it goes to the nonprofit, right.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Okay. I figured that was obvious but I just wanted to make sure that we threw that out there because.

[STEVEN AGUIAR] If anyone's listening thinking they're gonna scam people it's not possible, Sorry!

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah, awesome. Well, um, I think you've given a lot of great ideas and tips for people definitely get out there and start running some online fundraisers. You mentioned earlier that you have a resource, or you have worked with nonprofits, to create kind of blog posts on how to share.

[STEVEN AGUIAR] Yeah, so we launched a platform called Good Goes Further. And it's we're sort of working it on a few levels.

Number one, it's a private Facebook group, where nonprofit leaders and marketers can come. It's moderated by myself. I go in there almost every day and post new content things I'm thinking about, whether it's search marketing, or social marketing or email or CRM, or whatever it is. So that's a really good free resource. Go to https://goodgoesfurther.com and you can click on the link to request to join.

We are also as part of that interviewing nonprofit marketer about the one best tactic that's working for them recently. So we have several interviews out already with a lot more in the pipeline. And basically, we're connecting with nonprofit marketers across the country to ask them that one question what's working for you,

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] And is that nonprofit marketers that are working as staff for a nonprofit or

[STEVEN AGUIAR] Yea, staff at nonprofits, you know, CMOS heads of digital things like that. And basically, we're recording those interviews and sharing them in the group and just sharing them and generally on our good goes further social media platforms, Facebook and LinkedIn in particular. So there's that content series that just we're just trying to make it really frictionless for nonprofit marketers to learn from each other. Right? Because there's so much change happening. Some nonprofits, again, are killing it right now. Some are really struggling and we want to sort of help close the gap. as close to.

And the last thing I mentioned you know is that we're doing nonprofit marketing workshops. So we are charging for them. We basically work with a square with a nonprofit for one month and basically create a digital marketing blueprint that covers everything and everything, you know everything that they would need to get a digital marketing strategy out the door or improve on what they're doing right now. We are for the next for the for the month of June or so we are doing a pay what you can. So we're having ultimate price flexibility as far as the nonprofit marketing workshop. So if anybody works at somewhere smaller that may not be able to afford something like that, or may not regularly be able to afford bringing in a consultant. This is the time to hit us up. So yeah, check out https://goodgoesfurther.com.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] I love it. And we'll have all these links up in the show notes for this episode as well so you can check out those resources. And Steven, thank you so much for joining me on this episode. I think lots of great tips. So get out there and Whether you're a teeny tiny nonprofit or a large one, Facebook, fundraisers can work for you.

[STEVEN AGUIAR] For sure, they can definitely work. And thank you so much, Sami.

[CLOSING] II just want to say thank you again to Steven for joining me on this episode. So many good things that he talked about. And of course, everything will be linked up in the show notes that you can check out at https://thefirstclick.net/podcast. And I hope that you will put Facebook fundraisers and donations into your strategy and let me know, you know, tag us in some of those that we can check them out and see them in action. For now, I hope you'll subscribe wherever you listen, we come to you every Tuesday, and I would hate for you to miss out on a single episode. So thank you for listening and I'll see you next time.