Why NGOs Should Embrace Social Media

5 Ways Public Benefits Organizations Can Benefit From Social Media

As funding and resource mobilization becomes increasingly competitive, many Not-For Profits have chosen to control their administrative overheads by scrapping communication staff teams down to the bare bones essential. While this may be arguably necessary given how expensive communication activities can be when countenanced against project costs and program interventions, in the long run this has proved to be much like cutting your nose to spite your face, given the diminishing returns that under-resourced, thinly spread communication operations yield.

Social media is the saving grace for NGOs longevity. Its relative low-cost -high impact success when done right affords quick wins in all the areas that makes communication matter to organizational objectives. Here is a list of just 5 of the hundreds of possibilities social media can achieve for NGOs.

1. Showcase Impacts of successful interventions

Many NGOs are doing great things and achieving important milestones in development. These achievements often go un-recognized for many reasons including lack of funds to engage in expensive communication campaigns. Social media is an affordable way to blow your horn and share your success with people to whom it matters.

1. Share Knowledge from Impacts That Have Yielded Great Results

For the reticent Not-for-Profit who may shy away from publicly thumping their organizational chests, social media still creates important opportunity to control communication about your work. You can spotlight the community and still share stories of impact and important knowledge around interventions without drawing unwholesome attention to yourself. Targeted content on social media affords you a great level of control about what gets shared to whom and with what objective in mind.  

1. Creates Visibility & Credibility In One Fell Swoop

Social media allows you to not only tell your story but show your story. This powerful combination in content creation not only allows your project interventions to become visible but also enhances credibility around your work. Enhanced visibility and credibility for any organization increases funding potential for your programs.

1. Acknowledge Donor/Funder Efforts & Publicly Appreciate Their Support

One of the most problematic areas around acknowledging donor funding is how to compliment donor visibility and link it to sustainable impact. It is advantageous for funder partners to generate some social impact brand capital for their funding partners and social media provides the best platform to achieve this. Active acknowledgement of partners for all the right reasons inevitably increases a Not-For Profit’s prospects in attracting more beneficial partnerships.

1. Expand Space for Participatory Voices from Local Communities

With rapidly broadening social media access and use, innovative Not-for-Profits can leverage social media to rally communities and increases participatory space for local populations and disenfranchised voices. Moreover, community voices can be successfully amplified through social media. Already some Public Benefits Organizations have experienced great success in leveraging mobile social media tools such as WhatsApp in engaging communities and ensuring knowledge and information is shared not only from the grassroots to the top but laterally across different social, economic and gender lines. This is a great multiplier of better sustainability outcomes in community by allowing everyone’s voice to be heard.