Building Social Community Around Your Cause: Use social media tools to engage your audience and drive greater donations online
Thursday, July 9, 2009
By: Bob Cramer

The nonprofit landscape is becoming increasingly competitive, with more charitable organizations chasing the same donor dollars and former supporters having less time and money to give. As a result, many nonprofits are looking for new ways to reconnect with constituents and keep them engaged.

Social media, which are perhaps best known for their use on popular websites like MySpace and Facebook, can be similarly adopted by nonprofits to drive interest, encourage donations and build community around key issues, causes and goals.

What Can You Do With Social Media?

Today, most nonprofits have some form of static web site that offers text and photos posted by the organization itself. With the integration of social media tools, these sites can be transformed into “social communities” that allow constituents to engage other supporters while also eliciting community support for their own campaigns.

Social media tools can include message boards, blogs with reader comment capabilities, podcasts, photo- and video-sharing, and other interactive functions that enable online participation as opposed to a passive, “read only” experience. Also, users who register in social communities typically have their own profile page that tells other members a little about themselves. They can also join groups and “friend” or establish links to others with similar interests.

Such tools keep supporters and donors coming back to your website and staying for longer periods of time as they explore the community and get to know others. Further, the integration of social media enables a continually refreshed source of information new blog comments, new message board entries, new photos and video for site users to explore.

Examples of Nonprofits Using Social Media

Today, numerous nonprofits are embracing social media to build stronger ties with members and encourage their active involvement. These organizations include:

CARE (http://www.care.org/), which empowers women worldwide to combat poverty and improve their standards of living. It uses a variety of social media tools to create a strong sense of community based on supporter participation as opposed to geographic location and to encourage donations and advocacy. Through CARE’s social media community, members can post individual profiles, form specialized interest groups, make commentary to topical blogs, and network with other supporters online.

The Arthritis Foundation (http://www.arthritis.org/) is a national nonprofit that supports the more than 100 types of arthritis and related conditions. Social media tools on the AF website let members develop their own profile pages, “friend” others with like interests, upload photos, publish their own blogs about their experiences with the disease, and comment on blogs posted by others.

Is Now the Right Time?

Forging connections with supporters is especially important during tighter economic times, when many potential donors are feeling pressure to reduce their involvement and especially their contributions. Because social media tools transform passive, online audiences into active members, they help to create stronger ties that are less likely to be broken. These ties are between both the nonprofit and its advocates, and between the advocates themselves as they form friendships and bond over similar interests or concerns.

In the current economy, many nonprofits may be considering delaying social community initiatives. However, now is the right time to deliver new programs designed to engage supporters and keep activity levels high.

Also, realize that social communities are crucial for reaching younger adults who are the next generation of donors. This new and significantly large base grew up with the Internet as a regular part of their lives. As baby boomers move closer to retirement, appealing to these prospective supporters will become increasingly important.

Tips for Building a Social Community

Before launching a social media community, there are some points to consider:

1. Know your audience.
The tools you will want to invest in should be a fit with the online behavior of the people you are trying to reach. Ideally, you will want to conduct audience research to determine factors like: What other sites do they visit? What social media tools are they already comfortable with? How will they use social media to facilitate advocacy or fundraising? The answers to these questions will help you implement the features your supporters will actually use.

2. Align organizational objectives with social media tools.
Different social media tools are better at accomplishing specific objectives. For example, blogs with reader comment capabilities are a great way to get feedback on issues, while photo sharing is useful for building excitement around new programs or events. Also, since fundraising is always a top priority, make it easy to donate by placing “Donate Now” buttons in highly trafficked areas of your community.

3. Establish operating procedures.
Social communities require nonprofits to have a higher level of trust in their publics. At the same time, it is important to retain some organizational oversight to ensure communications remain appropriate and relevant to your goals. Identifying forum moderators and establishing rules for posting can help.

4. Get buy-in from organizational leaders.
A successful social media strategy requires active participation from many constituents as well as from organizational leaders. Before initiating a social community, make sure the appropriate internal personnel support the idea and are willing to integrate it into outreach activities. Ideally, those same leaders will also want to participate in the community themselves both to learn more about their constituents and to use that knowledge to shape future goals.

5. Make sure your community effectively extends your brand.
A social community should be a fluid component of your website, offering the same “look and feel” and integrating seamlessly with back-end donor management systems to enable you to gather intelligence about donors and market to them more effectively. Similarly, such integration will enable members to sign into your community using their existing name and password.    

Having a vibrant social community will help you provide new value to supporters and donors online, while supporting other external marketing efforts. In particular, building online communities that connect nonprofits with constituents and constituents with one another delivers a unifying component that can be instrumental in motivating and retaining a strong supporter base that attracts new constituents.

About the Author

Bob Cramer is co-founder, CEO and chairman of ThePort™ Network, Inc. (http://www.theport.com/), a leading social media solutions provider. He is also co-founder and chairman of A.D.A.M., Inc.