278. Social Fundraising: How to Find New Audiences + Grow Recurring Donors - Maria Clark
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Overview
Meet Maria. She's on a mission to deploy data science + human judgment to democratize the nonprofit supporter experience. Her org, GoodUnited, has helped missions raise more than $500M via peer-to-peer platforms online. Today they're powering the third wave of giving as the sector moves from online giving and email to 1:1 conversational messaging and engagement on social media. If you're trying to make social engagement more human + steward creatively, this is the episode for you🤔🎧
💡Learn:
How to engage with supporters in the digital spaces they already frequent
Cultivating recurring relationships + capturing new digital audiences
How nonprofits can make concentrated efforts to understand, inspire, and raise their relationships with social supporters starting with automated conversational messaging
Leveraging social media to better steward followers and supporters
Today’s Guest
Maria Clark, EVP of Partnerships and Chief Evangelist, GoodUnited
“When you have a whole generation of people, young and old, who are now spending all their time on social media or that is a way they communicate, engage, we have to make that ask there, we can’t expect people to come to us, we have to find ways to engage them.”
Episode Transcript
Download Full Episode Transcript Here
Episode highlights
Maria’s story and journey to where she is today (3:00)
Overview of social fundraising (6:00)
How this can de-risk your mission and add stability to your organization (11:00)
Tips for how to know your followers, and then engage + empower them (17:00)
Fundraising, coaching, and engaging through Facebook Messenger (24:00)
Case studies of who is doing social fundraising well (27:00)
Stewardship and donor cultivation following the social fundraising events and challenges (30:00)
A powerful moment of philanthropy in Maria’s life (33:00)
Maria’s One Good Thing: Take a step back and think big. (39:00)
Powerful Quotes
“It's a really important time in the evolution of fundraising. We consider this time moving into social media as a third wave of giving.” -Maria
“What we're finding now is that people are spending their time in a different place.” -Maria
“We know there's like 262 million active Facebook users every day. And we know in some of those other channels like on twitch or Tik Tok at any given time, there's more people online and then attend the Super Bowl every year.” -Maria
“When you have a whole generation of people, young and old, who are now spending all their time on social media or that is a way they communicate, engage, we have to make that ask there, we can't expect people to come to us, we have to find ways to engage them.” -Maria
“I'd like to see this as a new revenue stream.” -Maria
“I think social media in general is giving people community that they can truly be connected to. And now we can help funnel that into a cause that's making a difference for something you know, people care about.” -Maria
“really finding a way to replicate what we know are best practices in fundraising by doing it and channel on social media, where people are, you know, don't have to, you know, take seven clicks to get to what you want them to do.” -Maria
“Similar to most of our partners, when you embark on these challenges on Facebook, 80 to 90%, are new to the organization.” -Maria
“It’s really finding people that you again, have didn't even know were out there didn't know existed, but you're now have the opportunity to ask them to support your cause and engage with them in a different way.” -Maria
“This space is only going to grow and get bigger and the potential audience out there is massive, we got to start now so that you're poised and ready when the next platform comes on, or the technology changes, or you have the ability to, you know, take on a pilot or invest in this space.” -Maria
“I realized, when I made a huge transition in my life, from nonprofit, the for profit, how much my blinders had been been on me, you know, you get so busy in your heads down and you're buried in your work, which is very important work because you take your responsibility so seriously, but I don't think I took the time to step back and gave myself the breathing room to really think differently.” -Maria
connect with maria
connect with goodunited
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Episode Sponsored by
Studio Selfie
Julie Confer, Becky Endicott, Jonathan McCoy & Maria Clark
