Fundraising is at the heart of every nonprofit organization. With a great cause comes a great pitch. However, in today’s society, a pitch may be the same as before, but the layup might vary. Development professionals know this all too well. How do you convey the good works of your organization without turning it into a sales meeting? The answer is that the work should speak for itself. Fundraising is about making it more visible to the public and finding people who will care. When the right people care, good things happen. In modern society, a good vehicle for messaging is video. Live is even better than video because it captures a moment in time, which is exactly how moments should be conveyed.
Show People Your Work in Real Time
Every nonprofit has one or more programs that need recognition in order to incentivize donors to give. Show your program in action. From underserved youth basketball program to a mental health walk, capture the best moments through live streaming. If you use a comprehensive live streaming service, such as Contentflow, you can even live-edit. This would allow you to have control over what you want to show your audience at a moment’s notice, while going live. If your program has confidentiality limitations, you can always work around it. Instead of showing the program, you can show the employees and volunteers discussing the mission of the work.
Fundraising and Live Reporting
Grants and awarded funds often require annual or quarterly reports, updating the funder on progress. In addition to providing a written report, you can have a CEO, Program Director or another external-facing employee discuss the progress on live.
They could even host an Q/A, answering questions from the followers who would like to know more before making a financial commitment to the orgnaization. Additionally, if you provide regular live sessions at a specific time, donors and prospective donors may tune in for updates. By doing so, you will be providing a strong sense of transparency.
Add Donate Button on Live
While you are going live, think about adding a donate button. On Facebook Live, this option is very accessible. If you use Contentflow, you’ll be able to share your live stream with a donate feature from 100+ social media platforms and websites.
There is no limit on how many sites you can stream from, ultimately increasing your overall reach. This is an important feature to consider because without an audience, your fundraising options will be limited.
Live Video vs. Online Journal
Every nonprofit has either a gala, spring luncheon or small fundraiser to raise unrestricted funds for the organization. Many development professionals opt to have an online journal during the live event. While this may be a good idea, its success really depends on the website activity and frequency. If your social media has more views than your website, then it would make sense to focus on the former. By live streaming on your social media during your event ( and linking your donation page in your profile), you will provide more accessibility to donate. Even donors who want to donate do not want to climb a mountain to do so. They want easy and straight-forward. By tuning in to the live stream, they can see what is going on, why it’s important and why they should give.
Celebrity or Influencer Cosign Fundraising
Fundraising and live streaming can go hand in hand, especially when you need awareness in the public eye. A cause that is silent often gets ignored. If you want more people to care about your cause, then they have to know about it first. One of the best ways to get people’s attention is to get people who they care about to care. If their favorite celebrity or influencer is behind the cause, then it might grab their attention to take a second look. By getting a celebrity to be the face of your nonprofit, you can count on more views. When an influencer wears your nonprofit’s t-shirt or a celebrity links your nonprofit on their profile, more people will be interested in your work. However, if a celebrity goes on live and asks followers to give on the spot, you have an even better chance of raising funds.
Every nonprofit organization should live stream because it’s the number one way of communicating on social media. It allows you to have direct access to your donor. You can ask answer questions right away. They don’t have to wait for your latest report or to watch a video at your gala. The immediacy and transparency can be enough to make someone feel confident enough to invest in your organization. Utilizing live as a fundraising tool can be both an indirect and direct way of getting more buy-in and building better relationships with your donors.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 876239, 959379 & 965502.
