Facebook fundraisers have become extremely popular in the last few years. There are a few pros and cons of Facebook Fundraising Pages, but overall it can be a good way to engage with supporters, gain new followers and raise some money.
It’s important to know how to set up a fundraising page to encourage your followers to host their own fundraisers on your behalf. However, because the fundraiser is being hosted on a social media site there are a few things you should take note of.
Facebook Fundraiser Considerations
There are a few things to note about fundraisers. Since it is done through Facebook, you don’t receive all the donor data you would through an onsite donation. You can get a name or an email but it’s hard to keep track and steward every person donating on Facebook.
There is also a lag in the payout of donations and you could be waiting up to 2 weeks to receive your funds. Not to mention the Facebook algorithm changes that could make it difficult for the post to be seen.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t encourage your supports to create a Facebook fundraiser, but it shouldn’t be your main fundraising platform. Use it alongside other fundraising and marketing strategies, and it can help add to your goal!
Use our guide and video below to show your donors how to create their own Facebook fundraising pages for their Birthday, holiday or special event!
How To Start Fundraising On Facebook (On Desktop)
Log into Facebook and you will find yourself at its homepage. Look to your left and you will see a sidebar with different options with a "see more” button and an arrow facing down. Click on it and if you scroll down you should see the fundraisers tab. Click on it.
This will take you to the fundraising homepage with a ton of different options. You can choose to fundraise for yourself or a business, which will require you to set up banking information or input the name of the friend or business you’re fundraising for.
Since we are focusing on charities today we are going to go through the process of setting up a charitable fundraiser. We have another article that goes over how to register your charity on Facebook or you can click here for complete instructions.
Once you select "select nonprofit” you will be brought to a search bar with a library full of nonprofits. Search for the one you want to hold a fundraiser for and click on it.
Select the nonprofit you want to support and it will take you to your fundraising page, you’re almost done! This is where you can change up the information on the page and make it uniquely yours.
If you set up your charity to already input a custom header and description then it should show up at this stage. Fundraisers still have the option to customize it how they want by changing the goal amount, time-frame, description, title or main image. If you haven’t set anything up, it will use a generic photo and text that still gets the job done, but definitely not as eye-catching.
You can make changes in the sidebar on the left of the screen and should see your edits on the main page in front of you.
Once everything looks good to you hit create.
After hitting create you should be greeted with the congratulations page below. This has quick links directing you to share on your page, invite friends to donate or donate yourself.
If you’re in a hurry and don’t want to take any action at the moment, don’t worry. You can always come back to your fundraising page and perform those actions later. For now, let’s hit "get started” and see what to do next.
Now your fundraiser is live!
You’ll see that even though the final page is up, you still have options to edit by clicking the three dots beside the share button or hitting the "edit” button to swap out the image.
Invite friends to donate by clicking the (you guessed it) invite button, and use the share button to post on a page or timeline.
You also have the option to edit the duration or delete your fundraiser if you want to end it early.
Some Tips For Nonprofits
Encourage your supporters to hold their own fundraisers by making it as easy as possible to communicate your message and impact to encourage action. In addition to uploading a description and image, have a page on your website dedicated to giving more information on how to fundraise on Facebook.
You can provide instructions like what we did here, offer suggestions like fundraising on behalf of a loved one or in place of a birthday gift, or have alternative text that people can use for different campaigns or events.
Try to keep track of fundraisers, comments and sharing the host’s page to show your appreciation for their efforts. Even commenting a "thank-you” can go a long way. You may be able to download emails from fundraisers, but you will have to retrieve and manually add them to your database.
Conclusion
Social media can be a fun way to host peer-to-peer fundraisers but in moderation. It’s always better to use a designated P2P fundraising platform in order to get the most from your campaign.
Driven has an easy-to-use peer-to-peer platform that can be customized to your branding and keeps track of donor information for simple receipting and follow-ups. This could be a better option for larger campaigns or if you prefer to keep track and steward yoru donors. Learn more by talking to one of our team members at trustdriven.com/contact.
