With Facebook’s incredible reach, it’s a perfect tool to help with fundraising for a charity.  The problem is that reach, and the potential of the platform, can be overwhelming when deciding how to use it to get your target audience to donate.  So let’s start with…

What Facebook Is, And Isn’t

First things first, Facebook doesn’t have a donate button!  It may in future, but right now, it needs to be approached purely as a platform with an audience.  So then, for donations you’ll either have to send people to another site like Just Giving, or even of course to your own site.

Getting Started With a Facebook Page

Now, you need to get a Facebook page set up.  Any person or organisation can set up a page, and it allows you to post updates, news, interesting articles… whatever you choose.  And it basically gives you your own space on Facebook so others can follow your organisation by liking your page, and it allows you to easily communicate back and forth with your audience.

But just having a page isn’t enough, you want to build up the audience for that page since each person viewing your page is a potential donor of course.  So you can use your Facebook page as either a stepping stone to donating, or even a step that can be skipped over entirely as you send people direct to a donation page.

Pros and Cons of Advertising on Facebook

Facebook offers incredible flexibility and power with the reach of its advertising platform.  You can target people by age, interests, demographics, work, and almost any other number of possible options. However, making the most of your advertising campaign is a bit of an acquired skill.  You can just start with £5 and try to figure things out for yourself if you like.  And Facebook of course does have documentation to help you, and support staff that can guide you along.

But with the complexity of the platform and with all the options it offers, if you’re really looking to reach the widest audience possible and have the budget to spend, getting a professional on board may short cut the results you see significantly. At the simplest level, when advertising on Facebook, it’s either a matter of sending visitors to your page so they Like it and follow it, or sending them direct to your website or donation page.

Perhaps if you have an urgent fundraising goal, conveying this urgency and sending visitors directly to a giving page may work best.  However, if your needs aren’t quite so urgent and you’re looking to build up your audience, sending people to your page or perhaps building the number of subscribers of an email newsletter may work longer term.

Simply put – Facebook’s reach is astounding.  And frankly, your audience is on Facebook right now.  It might take a little know-how and a little trial and error to successfully get in front of that audience, but Facebook is ideal for attracting donations to your cause.