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How Non-profits Can Use the Internet to Their Advantage and Encourage People to Donate Online
In the digital age of 2021, charities and non-profit organizations should remember the fact that everyone is now glued to their smartphones and constantly using the internet across a variety of devices. It’s reported that today only around 7% of adults in the US do not use the internet. We have come up with a guide to how non-profits can use the internet to their advantage and successfully encourage people to donate to their cause online.
Use Reliable Online Fundraising Platforms for Charity Events and Fundraisers
If a non-profit organization is hosting a fundraising event, they can also easily get donations online by using the services of reliable online fundraising platforms. By the same token, any individual who doesn’t work for the non-profit as an employee, but is looking to support it by taking part in a charity event and crowdfunding online for the organization, can also make the most of reliable online fundraising platforms.
Non-profits should encourage any people looking to fundraise to support their cause to write a little paragraph in order to personalize their online fundraising page a bit on the online platform. Writing to explain why supporting this cause is so special and important to you as a person should hopefully encourage more people to kindly donate their money.
However, non-profit organizations should always read the small print when it comes to using online fundraising platforms. It’s important to avoid any ‘hidden fees’ for using the platform which may continue to rise and rise. The most important thing when using an online fundraising platform is that as much money as possible actually goes to the non-profit organization to help them with their operations as a charitable cause.
Email Marketing
Email marketing for non-profits is an effective online fundraising strategy and a great way for them to try and attract more donations from supporters. One major advantage of email marketing for non-profits is that it doesn’t cost a lot of money at all and doesn’t require a non-profit to have access to a large budget.
To keep users engaged and interested in reading your emails, you may want to create an exciting e-newsletter to keep supporters in the loop and up to date about what your non-profit organization is up to. You can use e-newsletters to keep people up to date about important fundraising events and webinars that are taking place soon, talk about projects that are coming up and how your organization intends to use funds that have been raised, and you can also choose to include blog posts about your charity. This article from the online fundraising platform Givebutter explains a bit more about some useful email marketing tactics that nonprofit organizations can use online.
Create an Engaging Website and Keep Your Social Media Accounts Updated
To give your non-profit an impactful online presence and motivate more people to donate to your cause, it’s certainly a good idea to make sure your nonprofit has a fun and engaging website full of information about your organization’s work.
When setting up and building a website for a non-profit, it’s firstly important to have a plan and know before launching the website what you want to achieve and who you will be targeting. Your website should explain your charitable cause and how exactly you use any donations to help others. For example, a website for a charity supporting teenagers with cancer should have web pages where it explains how the organization uses the funds it raises to help teenagers with cancer as much as possible. You may want to make the most of different forms of media and include informative well-directed video clips on the website about your charitable efforts and who it helps. Of course, your charitable cause may not necessarily be focused on helping humans directly, it may be about supporting animals or protecting a natural environment.
Lots of people these days spend a lot of their time scrolling through social media channels such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and so on. As a result, charity organizations that want to encourage people to donate to their cause online should use social media to their benefit. This may mean producing regular written posts on social media updating supporters and followers on fundraising events, posting amusing GIFs and Internet memes that grasp users’ attention, and posts congratulating people for their recent fundraising efforts. Social media is where a lot of Americans, young and old, spend their time online these days. Therefore, to connect with a wider audience and receive more donations, non-profits definitely should make sure they have a social media presence and post regularly on social media channels.
So, non-profits should view the internet as a fantastic free marketing tool available to them. If non-profits are able to make the most of the internet and post in an effective manner that manages to encourage more people to donate to their organization and support what they do, then they can only win from having an online presence.