Facebook Giving Season: An Action Plan

Facebook Giving Season

Facebook Giving Season: An Action Plan

In the last quarter of every year, nonprofits prepare for the influx of expected donations that often cover a majority of the next year’s budget.

Giving season marks the time of year that supporters are most likely to donate. Holidays typically soften the hearts of consumers and the end of the tax year encourages donations they can write off. Year over year trends show that December accounts for 30% of annual giving, and 12PM-7PM December 31st is a high-traffic time for online giving.

save the date december 3 #givingtuesdayGivingTuesday, a global campaign for end-of-year giving on the Tuesday after Black Friday, raised $380 million in 2018. Last year, on Facebook alone, charitable fundraising campaigns raised over $125 million on GivingTuesday, $45 million more than GivingTuesday 2017.

Since Facebook dropped their processing fee for personal fundraisers, that number makes it the largest payment processing platform for GivingTuesday, making it easier to use than other social media platforms that have to link to other payment processing sites. Advertising the campaign is also made easy with Facebook Advertising, and the planning process can be broken up into three basic blocks.

Planning

Before

Planning your fundraising strategy for giving season is essential. Try to find a matching partner, whether that be a large donor or a corporate sponsor. If you struggle finding one that meets your needs, Philanthropic.ly is a platform that connects nonprofits with corporations looking for organizations like theirs. You should also start building out the campaign, such as making a website landing page, a Facebook fundraiser landing page, and creatives. You should also make sure you have a donate button on your Facebook Business Page. Keep in mind that you need to be a verified nonprofit on Facebook in order to receive donations and create a fundraising page if you are not already.

During

Your social media should mention your fundraising campaign in at least 1 out of every 5 posts and link to a donation page. Your supporters can also start a fundraiser on your behalf, helping further your mission and your reach. You can view all supporter fundraisers under the ‘Fundraisers’ tab on your Facebook Business Page. Facebook Ads are an effective way to advertise to people most likely to donate to your cause, with targeting options that may include people who like your page and their friends. Advertising on Facebook also allows you to easily send users to your fundraising landing page and donate without ever leaving Facebook.

After

At the end of giving season, you can relax and involve your supporters in the celebration of meeting or exceeding your goal. Page admins can post thank you notes on supporter fundraiser pages. You can also send thank you notes to supporters online and offline if they donated by mail-in.

Creatives

Your Facebook fundraiser landing page should have a unique and campaign-branded cover image and photo. You can find GivingTuesday 2019 logos for your graphics and images on their website. Cover images are 851px by 315px and regular photos are 720px, 960px or 2048px wide. Make sure your photo file sizes are less than 100KB. When advertising, static image ads require minimal text, and will not run with more than 20% of the image containing ad text.

facebook ad format customization
An example from Facebook Ads Help Center of ad format customization based on placement. Click to see full size in another tab.

Your Facebook Advertising creatives formatting vary by ad placement. Facebook recently introduced a new way to change ad formatting for different placements within the ad creation process. A high quality advertising strategy includes a mixed-format campaign with ads showing across different placements. If you don’t have videos for your campaign, Facebook makes it easy to create basic motion videos using images. Campaigns with a mix of these slideshow-like videos and static images typically perform better than those that do not.

Your primary ad text and headline should give all the information a user needs in order to know exactly what will happen when they click the call to action button on your ads. After some initial data learning is complete, your Ads Manager will provide ad relevance feedback on individual ads that includes three rankings: Quality, Engagement, and Conversion. The results will hopefully help you narrow down the issue with your ads when you use the Ad Relevance Diagnostics Guide.

Saying Thank You

Business Page admins can thank supporter fundraisers by posting directly on the fundraiser page. You can also follow these supporter campaigns and thank donors as you see them participating or commenting. Stay engaged with donors to show them you care and are paying attention. Make sure you update social media followers with your final fundraising total.

This year’s giving season is sure to exceed previous record-breaking years, especially on GivingTuesday itself. Donations on GivingTuesday increase by the tens of millions every year, and some marketers are predicting that GivingTuesday 2019 will raise more than $500 million this year on December 3rd, 2019.

If you have questions about the 2019 giving season or need help with your Facebook Ads and fundraising, contact us.