This document discusses strategies for fundraising using social media. It identifies key steps in a fundraising campaign including identification, cultivation, solicitation, and acknowledgement. It provides tips for each step such as looking for interest indicators on social media, telling stories to engage supporters, making donations easy, and thanking donors personally. Specific examples are described, like the Refuge.org.uk campaign that used an existing makeup video trend. Top tips for social media fundraising include creating shareable content, responding quickly, being authentic, and learning from mistakes. Kids' Company created engaging Vine videos that led to instant donations.

1. Social Media Masterclass:
Fundraising
Larry Taylor – sales program Manager

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Fundraising with zero budget
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Fundraising campaigns
Identification
• Look for key ‘interest indicators’
Keep an eye on likes, shares, comments or hashtags on social media, and strike up conversations with these like-
minded people.
• Take advantage of existing networks
Tap into established communities and groups. Use promoted posts to reach people who are already friends of your
followers, or who have identified an interest in your cause.
#nomakeupselfie raise £8M for cancer research.
It wasn’t even their campaign!
#icebucket challenge was not a MND campaign!
Cultivation
• Build reciprocal relationships
Engage directly with your followers by asking and answering questions, and listening to what they have to say.
• Take people on a journey
Create content such as photos, videos and blogs that bring your mission to life. Tell stories about your volunteers,
the projects you’re working on, and the people whose lives you touch.
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Solicitation
• Have a strong, emotive message
Carry a simple, motivating message through your ask. Show people what they’ll be contributing to if they
donate or fundraise for your cause.
• Make donating easy
Invest in a straightforward donation funnel with as few obstacles for users as possible. Make sure you’re
set up to receive donations through online and mobile channels.
Acknowledgement
• Make it personal
Thank your donors and supporters on social media by sharing photos, videos and stories of how they
have helped. Use a familiar tone and recognise donors as individuals.
• Make it shareable and findable
Include social sharing buttons on the last step of your donation or sign up process – such as a thank you
page – so supporters can share with their networks. Include calls to action to let others know how to get
involved. Use tags, use keywords, use metadata
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Deconstructing the Refuge.org.uk campaign
Refuge video
1. Existing trend – Make-up videos
2. Existing networks – women’s networks, channels and tags
(metadata) Category How-to & Style
3. It’s a real story, with a real person
4. It tells a story
5. It’s emotional
6. It’s findable and shareable
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10 Top tips
1. Get everyone to take a picture, get a quote. Produce a simple content calendar (i.e. content for three
Facebook posts/tweets a week) and in monthly meetings discuss with the team the kind of content you could
use. Schedule some stuff to post at peak times: early morning, Lunchtime and evenings
2. Tell stories, not statistics. 10,000 people need help vs. Sean needs your help.
3. Ask questions. Set polls, challenges and provoke responses @irishrolemodels
4. It’s all about content. There is no such thing as a planned viral campaign. There is only good video, good
images and good stories. Nobody can be forced to like your content.
5. Do what comes naturally. Split the responsibility of social media between two or three of your team then
hopefully you will be able to find the time to populate your channels.
6. Respond quickly. Twitter is a 60sec medium. Facebook - a few hours and LinkedIn - a few days
7. Be 'human' so they see you as an equal, not some faceless entity
8. Be funny. Your message is serious and your stories are hard to absorb, so you need to laugh sometimes
9. Be authentic. As charities, you don’t need to pretend to be anything other than yourselves. What works
ITRW should work on-line
10. Make mistakes and move on. Be brave 
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Instant gratification
• In the last year Kids’ Company have undertaken a series of
initiatives to engage people with high quality content that leads
to invitations to donate instantly. Using the six-second mobile
app Vine, they created a series of videos showing children in
disadvantaged situations. People that watched it and then
donated money to 'make it stop', instantly received a follow-up
Vine showing the children in happier situations.
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Questions? Get in Touch!
Larry.taylor@oracle.com
Twitter: @lartaylor