Fundraising-lite - 3 great ways to get your supporters to raise money online
Sam here again, I’m here this week to talk about some great ways to engage supporters in raising money online.
One great thing about charitable giving is that it doesn’t always have to be an active action you ask from your supporters, it can be passive as well. With platforms like AmazonSmile and Facebook Donate making waves, charities and nonprofits potentially have a lot to gain by lightly steering their supporters to raise money in a way that is easy to set up and fits into their online lifestyle.
Let’s have a look at a few of the options:
AmazonSmile
You would be hard pressed to find many people who shop online who don’t use Amazon. That is why the AmazonSmile programme is a no-brainer if you want to drive a supporters to support you in a consistent way that requires no active fundraising action from them.
The programme allows people who buy products through Amazon to have a percentage of their purchase donated to their chosen charity, at no extra cost to them. Right now, that percentage is 0.5% which on paper sounds insignificant, but when you consider an average Amazon Prime customer spends an average of £350 a year on Amazon, encouraging your supporter base to take part can be a quick win to getting another source of income that your didn’t have before.
If you want to get your organisation set up, you will first need to enrol in the AmazonSmile programme. There are a few steps to this, but once set up your charity will appear in the list of charities for your supporters to select and you will then start to receive income from Amazon.
In terms of speaking to your customers, we have tried aligning our AmazonSmile communications to supporters around key seasonal moments. This helps to ensure relevancy of your message, when a sizable proportion of your supporters are thinking about shopping online. A few events below to get you started:
• Mothers Day / Fathers Day
• Easter
• Black Friday
• Christmas (I am sure you worked that one out for yourself!)
You can find out more here.
Facebook Donate
Facebook have developed a charity fundraising platform, which through a simple sign up for charities allows users to donate to a charity of their choice.
There are a range of ways that charities are currently testing to drive fundraising through Facebook Donate, however we have seen significant growth in one specific aspect of the channel — birthday fundraisers.
Birthday fundraisers work like this: when a Facebook user’s birthday is approaching they will be sent an automatic notification to ask them if they wish to run a birthday fundraiser on behalf on a charity of their choice. Charities can set themselves up to prompt this action from supporters in a number of ways, whether through email or social media communications, or content on their website, giving tips on how to set up a successful fundraiser for their birthday.
You can find out more here.
Website Partnerships
There are plenty of website owners looking to partner with charities to engage indirectly with their supporters, and in some cases build their own brand through association with your organisation.
For our Christmas Appeal, we partnered with Quidco to offer new customers of the money saving website a £10 cashback deal when they signed up, in exchange for a £10 donation to them charity. This benefits all parties, the supporter gets their donation returned, Qudico gets a new customer, and we benefit from the donation.
Similarly to AmazonSmile you can plan this into your supporter communications, making them aware of the partnership. Likewise the partner will likely promote through their own channels, which means you can get the message out there from both parties.
Unlike the options above, we worked with For Good Causes to set up the relationship. There is no sign up programme for this but it is worth keeping an eye out — quite often the right partner will reach out to you!
Have you seen successes from similar fundraising partnerships and channels? We would love to hear about your experiences!
