Promoting your charity online to engage with donors

Social platforms, media networks and your very own website are amongst the most popular and effective ways of raising awareness of your charity, whilst allowing users to engage with your organisation, with ease. There is an abundance of digital solutions to help maximise your online potential, but knowing where to start can be confusing. It can be difficult to get an overview of what’s effective. We investigated and found notable services that are useful and free for charities for you to tap into.

Elbi

Elbi is a social enterprise that provides a platform and app that connects people, brands and charities to make donating easy and rewarding. It allows for your charity to appear in the app’s news feeds. Elbi presents various charitable causes in the form of short videos. People then can hear directly from your charity, beneficiaries and learn about the causes you work on. You can register to work with Elbi here.

Google Ad Grants

Google Ad Grants gives charities up to $10,000 per month for in-kind advertising on Google, allowing your advertisements to be seen by your target audience. The creator of the ad then has complete control of where it can be seen, whether that’s locally or internationally.

Google also offers free online courses through Google Garage. Some courses offer learning that can be also applied in the charity world, for example: ‘Fundamentals of digital marketing’ which comes with certification or ‘Make sure customers find you online’, just to name a few.

Social networks

Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are still some of the top social media platforms when it comes to amount of users. Being present on social media is becoming an increasing crucial thing for your charity. Using social media connects with your donors and beneficiaries easily and helps promote your cause. You can post updates for your donors and let them know where and how their donations are being spent. Facebook introduced a range of Charitable Giving tools, like a donate button which allows users to make donations through their platform. It’s also free (for now). Charities using Facebook’s payment platform to process donations pay no fee. Facebook also offers courses through Facebook Business, which teaches you how to be more successful with their platform (much of the learning they offer is transferrable to the charity world).

Instagram is also working on introducing a donate button via their Instagram stories function that appeared in the last year – so watch that space.

Pressat

Press releases can give your cause instant exposure to the media, increase the effectiveness of your marketing plans and drive traffic to your website. Pressat is a commercial press agency, but it allows charities to send out press releases for free. Simply sign up with them and submit your press release to be distributed.

Media Trust

Media Trust is a communications charity that works with the media and communication industry to help other charities. They connect industry professionals with charities around specific projects through skills-based volunteering. They also offer capacity building programmes for marginalised communities and empowering young people from diverse backgrounds to work in media.

CAST

CAST works with non-profits when it comes to anything digital. They support you in building your organisation’s digital capacity. Their 12 week Fuse programme helps charities to develop digital products or services to take to pilot. They also help charities develop their own digital solutions through their Design Hop workshops. CAST also offers training on how to learn more about your audience; testing ideas to end-to-end service plans, and uncovering financial value and sustainability of your digital services.

Check out our training courses on fundraising here.