Getting people to notice your cause is a challenge in itself, and let’s face it, word-of-mouth is only going to get you so far. There are thousands of causes out there, and you really need to do something special if you want people to care about yours.
If you want people to fund your organisation, you need to get them to become emotionally invested in what you’re trying to achieve, so much so that they’re willing to put their hard-earned dollars in your hands.
According to a survey by Blackbaud, people give to causes online for 5 main reasons:
- To support a friend/family member in doing something good (27%)
- In response to a campaign for a particular cause (23%)
- A personal connection to a particular cause (19%)
- For their own sense of self-worth (10%)
- Being a recipient of kindness and felt they should ‘pay it forward’ (6%)
These statistics speak for themselves, and certainly point to the fact that getting people to feel the true gravity of your cause is well worth focusing on.
Here are a few handy tips I’ve put together that will help you raise funding for your cause in the digital space.
1. Believe in Your Cause
This isn’t really a tip specific to the digital space (and might seem obvious), but if you don’t strongly believe in your cause, you’re going to have a very hard time getting anyone else to care about it.
One of my favourite quotes on this subject is by Jason McNeal, which he calls the “Believe First” Rule:
“In order to increase the number of donors who “get it,” we have to first “get it” ourselves. We have to first evidence a generous, positive spirit. We must strive daily to add value and build up those around us… Not just because it is our work, but because we believe it is best for us, our institutions, and our communities.”
2. Use an Online Fundraising Platform
There are a multitude of fundraising platforms out there that allow you to accept donations. I’ll introduce you to the main ones briefly.
SIMPLE 3rd PARTY FUNDRAISING PAGES
As far as simple fundraising platforms go, there are quite a few. Almost all of them have the option of choosing free vs paid plans, and almost all of them charge a fee between 4-8% of each transaction.
Some of the most user-friendly ones around include:
NATIONBUILDER
Currently, the fastest growing platform for organisations and causes is NationBuilder. NationBuilder allows you to not only accept donations, but to manage all the people who have expressed interest in your cause, from members, to volunteers, staff, and donors. Being able to manage your supporters from one central CRM makes NationBuilder quite powerful, which is likely what contributed to its rapid growth. This is a paid solution, with tiers to suit a variety of organisations.
Want to find out more about NationBuilder? Click here.
HOST YOUR OWN
You can always host your own website, with integrated online payment facilities, like PayPal and Stripe. If you have a web designer and developer, you could setup your own donation page on your website. The most popular e-commerce solution at the moment for this scenario is WooCommerce, which is an e-commerce plugin for WordPress. WordPress and WooCommerce are free, but if you want any special features added on, you often have to pay for plugins (which isn’t too expensive in most cases).
Hot Tip: Make your “Donate Now” button on your website as clear and obvious as possible. If it stands out enough, it will increase the number of donations that your organisation gets (it really is that simple).
There are a multitude of other conversion based insights that would do you good to explore. One of the world’s most recognised conversion optimisation experts, Peep Laja (@peeplaja), created a blog that includes tonnes of really great advice on conversion and some things you should be thinking about. Check out his blog on ConversionXL.
3. Use Facebook Right
Using Facebook is a great way to make people aware of your cause, but you still need a way to grab the attention of the right people. Facebook is an excellent medium for creating awareness by targeting the specific people who are likely to resonate with your mission and message, but you also don’t want to annoy people who aren’t interested in your cause (or worse, people who are opposed to it).
So how do you get the attention of the right people? There are a few ways to do this. You can either play the long game by simply posting content that will get shared more and more as your Facebook Page gains more followers, or you can pay for ads. I would recommend a combination of the two. Facebook’s advertisements can be set up to be incredibly targeted. So if for example, your cause was about fighting climate change, you could target people on Facebook whose specific interests align with issues related to climate change, like solar and wind power as an example.
The example below shows how the Climate Council in Australia uses testimony from the grassroots people affected by climate change. Good photography combined with authentic quotes from real people is a great mix.
Once your following has grown and you’ve convinced your audience that your devotion to the cause is beyond question, only then should you start asking for donations, preferably using adverts and page posts simultaneously. When you do, it’s always a good idea to give the audience the impression that they’re getting something in return for their donation, so make it clear to them what that money will help to achieve. The more specific you can be about that, the better.
If you want more advice on how to make the most of Facebook, then John Loomer is one of the foremost Facebook marketing authorities. His website is an excellent resource on how to make the best of Facebook’s marketing potential. I’d highly recommend browsing some of his helpful articles.
4. Tweet Like You Mean It
Twitter’s short, sharp, headline-style format functions well for quick newsflashes. If members of your team have just finished a fun-run, then Tweet it just as you’ve finished the race, because that’s when the fun-run’s hashtags will likely be trending hardest.
If you’ve hit a landmark amount of donations (say 50% of your goal) then Tweet it and include one or two suitable #hashtags and any relevant @JohnDoe mentions.
Twitter’s power lies in your capacity to share snippets of useful links and information that are relevant to your audience at the time when that info is at its most useful and interesting (when that topic is trending, or has the potential to trend).
5. Write Inspired Blog Posts
Easier said than done, to be sure, but not necessarily…
Have a think on what your cause is about and what it is trying to achieve. You most likely have a number of blog ideas floating around in your head that would help your cause significantly, if only you could put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard).
So… do your research. Writing awesome content is not easy, but it’s well worth the effort. It just takes time, passion, and most importantly, research.
The best blog posts are born of a good idea, but they don’t end there. If you want people to find common ground with your ideas, you’re going to need to go on a quest to hunt down all the content out there that relates to the idea you want to blog about.
Once you’ve read enough content that relates to what you want to write about, ask yourself: “Will my article genuinely add value for people?” If it’s a resounding “YES”, then write about it in a way that speaks to the kind of person who’d be interested in an article like yours.
And don’t just give them the bare essentials. Give them everything they could ever have hoped to know about your idea. Give them everything you’ve learned. Summarise it where necessary of course (you’re not writing a bed-time story), and think of their needs while you’re writing.
If you’re looking for more tips on how to write great content, an excellent place to start would be Neil Patel’s QuickSprout article about writing “Epic Content”. Forbes rates him one of the top 10 online marketers, so he’s kind of a big deal.
6. Harness the Power of Email Marketing
If you have a database of people interested in your cause (basically a list containing people’s names and email addresses), then you should be sending out email newsletters to them at opportune times.
There are a variety of platforms that provide bulk email sending services. They vary in terms of size, complexity, usability, and cost, among other factors. One of the most respected online award panels, Awwwards ranks these providers as the top 10 in the industry:
- Mailchimp
- Campaign Monitor
- Email Brain
- Stream Send
- Mad Mimi
- Benchmark Email
- Get Response
- Constant Contact
- Graphic Mail
- Boomerang
NationBuilder (the CRM I mentioned earlier) is built specifically for causes and organisations and has bulk email functionality built into it, so it’s already integrated into the platform. It’s not quite as fully featured or as slick as the likes of the mighty MailChimp, but having used NationBuilder’s email service myself, I can say it certainly does the job just fine.
No matter what platform you’re using, you should be sending your supporters occasional news and updates to keep them interested and invested in the cause.
If you send requests for donations, tell them what their money will do. If they make a solid link between the money they’re spending and the effect that their donation will have, you’re on the right track. For example, $20 will pay for 200 flyers to create awareness in the community, etc.
Choosing a good subject line is one of the most important aspects of writing emails. Experiment with different subject lines from time to time. An approach that I’ve found to work time and time again, is to mention the person’s first name in the subject line, and make clear mention of the most interesting aspect of the email content. For example, “Mary, your guide to surviving the Zombie Apocalypse” makes clear mention of what lies inside the email. Mary would be more inclined to open the email, because she’d want to see what this “guide” is all about.
Writing good email content is an art, something you should continually refine and experiment with if you want to improve your results.
Conclusion
One or more of the methods I’ve mentioned could make a significant difference to your marketing mix. Start by trying the ones that interest you most, and focus on doing them well. When you’re happy with the results you’re getting from that method, try another. You’ll need to fiddle around with each aspect before you find something that works well for you. Marketing is far from an exact science.
As they say, there are no expert marketers – only experienced marketers and expert testers. So test and test and test some more. And when you’re done with that… you guessed it, test it!
If you found this article interesting enough to share, share it. If you think I’ve left something out or you have something to contribute, I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments section below.