Facebook can be an incredibly powerful platform for nonprofits to raise awareness, engage with supporters, and fundraise. With over 2 billion active monthly users, Facebook provides access to a massive audience. However, with so many organizations and causes competing for attention, it can be challenging to stand out. Using the right strategies and optimization is key to successfully promoting a nonprofit on Facebook.
Why Use Facebook to Promote a Nonprofit?
There are several key reasons why nonprofits should have a strong presence on Facebook:
- Huge audience – With so many active users, Facebook offers access to people all around the world. This presents a major opportunity to get your cause in front of lots of eyes.
- Engagement – Facebook users are there to connect and engage. This allows nonprofits to build communities and foster meaningful interactions with supporters.
- Fundraising – Facebook provides excellent options for nonprofits to fundraise, such as creating donation buttons, promoting fundraisers, and more.
- Brand awareness – Nonprofits can increase awareness and shape brand perceptions through Facebook posts and ads.
- Storytelling – Facebook enables nonprofits to share compelling stories through photos, videos, and updates from the field.
Overall, the massive reach, engagement potential, and versatility of Facebook make it an essential platform for nonprofits.
Building an Effective Nonprofit Facebook Presence
Creating a successful nonprofit presence takes more than just setting up a Facebook page. Here are some tips for building an effective nonprofit Facebook strategy:
- Complete page setup – Make sure to fully populate your nonprofit’s Facebook page with an eye-catching cover photo and profile pic, description of your mission, contact info, calls-to-action, and more.
- Engaging content mix – Post a balance of video, images, links, stories, and more. Provide supporters with content that informs, inspires, and moves them to act.
- Authentic tone – Craft posts with a genuine voice and point of view. Avoid overly formal, sales-y language.
- Respond to comments – Actively monitor and reply to comments and messages to foster community.
- Calls-to-action – Include clear CTAs in posts like “Learn more”, “Sign up now”, “Donate today”, etc.
- Paid promotion – Consider investing in Facebook ads to expand your reach and get in front of targeted audiences.
- Engaging hashtags – Research and use relevant hashtags to tap into larger conversations.
- Quality over quantity – Focus on providing truly useful, engaging content rather than posting too frequently.
- Monitor and refine – Continuously analyze your Facebook metrics and results to improve your content and strategy.
Types of Facebook Posts to Promote Your Nonprofit
Crafting a content mix with a variety of different post types will make your nonprofit’s Facebook presence more dynamic and compelling. Here are some of the main types of posts to include:
Mission and Impact Focused Posts
Share stories, photos, videos, and facts that highlight your mission, demonstrate your impact, and inspire people to get involved. For example, share a story about how a family was helped by your nonprofit’s programs or post an infographic showing lives improved.
Event and Initiative Promotion
Promote upcoming fundraising events, volunteer days, campaigns, and other initiatives. Share key details, compelling reasons to participate, and calls-to-action.
Behind-the-Scenes Content
Give supporters an inside look at your nonprofit through behind-the-scenes photos and videos. This could include content from volunteer trips, client visits, staff meetings, and more.
Appreciation and Recognition Posts
Thank volunteers, partners, corporate sponsors, and other supporters through public recognition posts. This fosters goodwill and a sense of community.
Educational and Tip Content
Provide value to followers by sharing tips, how-tos, and educational content related to your cause. For example, share signs of child hunger and how people can help if your nonprofit fights food insecurity.
Responses to Current Events
When major current events and news happen related to your cause, share thoughtful responses demonstrating your perspective and expertise.
Asks for Support
Make specific asks of your audience like volunteering, donating, sharing your posts, reviewing your organization, attending an event, or taking advocacy actions.
Partner Highlights
Show appreciation for corporate partners, foundations, community groups, and others who support your work by highlighting them in posts.
Best Practices for Nonprofit Facebook Content
While having a diverse content mix is important, individual posts also need to be optimized for the Facebook feed. Here are some best practices:
- Write short, attention-grabbing headlines
- Craft compelling captions that inspire engagement
- Use high-quality, eye-catching images and video
- Leverage tagging people and organizations to expand reach
- Include calls-to-action in posts to drive specific actions
- Focus on positive, inspirational tones
- Use native Facebook video whenever possible
- Post consistently 2-3 times per week minimum
- Vary post types – quotes, links, photos, etc.
- Monitor best posting times for your audience
Facebook Post Ideas and Examples
Crafting engaging nonprofit Facebook posts takes creativity and strategy. Here are some examples of great post ideas:
Storytelling Spotlights
| Photo of a smiling young girl holding up an award, overlaid with text: | Meet Sarah. Last year she was struggling and lacked confidence. But through the mentoring program at [Nonprofit Name], Sarah has gained skills and self-esteem. She received student of the month for improved grades! Our programs change lives every day. |
Event Promotion
| Graphic with event details: | Our biggest fundraiser of the year is coming up! Join us on 5/19 for our Annual 5k Run/Walk For Hunger. Get some exercise, have fun, and support a great cause! Can we count on you? Register and learn more by clicking below! |
Behind-the-Scenes
| Photo of staff members packing donation boxes: | Our staff is busy today packing care packages of food, school supplies, and hygiene items for local families in need. Thank you to all our volunteers who donated items and are helping sort! We couldn’t do this without our amazing community. |
Education/Tips
| Infographic with clothing drive tips: | Clothing drives are a great way to give back! Here are some tips to host a successful clothing drive to benefit [Nonprofit Name]: 1. Partner with schools, businesses etc. 2. Provide donation boxes and pickups 3. Promote on social media 4. Offer tax receipts 5. Thank all donors. Want to help? We’d love donations and volunteers! Learn more by clicking below. |
Measuring Facebook Performance
To refine your Facebook strategy, it’s crucial to monitor key metrics and performance indicators. Here are some top Facebook metrics for nonprofits to track:
- Follower growth – monitors how well you are expanding your community
- Engagement rate – percentage of people interacting with each post via reactions, comments, shares etc.
- Click-through rate – monitors percentage of people clicking links you share
- Reach – number of unique accounts that have seen your content
- Website traffic – monitors how much traffic is being driven to your nonprofit’s website from Facebook
- Fundraising return – for donation appeals, calculates funds raised versus cost of content
- Engagement by post type – analyzes what content types get the highest engagement
Regularly monitoring these metrics allows nonprofits to identify what Facebook content and strategies are working best and optimize their approach accordingly.
Facebook Tools to Support Nonprofits
Facebook offers a number of built-in tools specifically to help nonprofits achieve their goals. Here are some top Facebook tools and features for nonprofits to leverage:
- Facebook Donations – Allows nonprofits to collect direct donations through their Facebook Page.
- Facebook Fundraisers – Enables individuals to create fundraisers benefiting your nonprofit.
- Nonprofit Ad Grants – Provides matching advertising credit for nonprofits to promote their initiatives.
- Instagram for Nonprofits – Grants access to exclusive Instagram tools and features.
- Facebook Live – Great for virtual events, behind-the-scenes, Q&As and more.
- Facebook Groups – Allows supporters to connect and chat in a dedicated online community.
- Events – Helps promote and manage in-person and virtual events.
- Peer-to-Peer Fundraising API – Allows nonprofits to integrate fundraising tools into their website and mobile apps.
Learning how to best leverage these available Facebook tools can greatly amplify a nonprofit’s marketing and fundraising success.
Using Facebook Ads to Promote Your Nonprofit
While organic unpaid Facebook posts are great, running paid Facebook ads provides nonprofits with some extremely powerful promotional capabilities. Here are some tips for effective nonprofit Facebook ads:
- Target your ads very specifically using location, age, interests and more.
- Test different types of ads including photo, video, carousel, and Stories.
- Create compelling messaging with a strong emotional appeal.
- Use A/B testing to compare ad variations against each other.
- Retarget people who have already engaged with your content.
- Promote time-sensitive initiatives like fundraisers.
- Drive traffic to important pages like donation pages.
- Boost your best-performing organic posts.
Facebook grants eligible nonprofits $5-10K per month in free advertising credit through the Ad Grants program. This provides a free way to experiment with Facebook ads and see your reach expand.
Additional Tips and Strategies
Here are some final tips for unlocking the full potential of Facebook for your nonprofit:
- Stay on top of Facebook algorithm changes that impact nonprofits.
- Use Facebook Insights to analyze performance and fine-tune efforts.
- Create a content calendar to organize and plan upcoming content.
- Leverage user-generated content by sharing supporter photos/stories.
- Occasionally post Facebook Live videos to engage followers.
- Cross-promote Facebook content on other social media channels.
- Make your Facebook presence a team effort with multiple contributors.
Conclusion
Facebook provides a tremendously valuable platform for nonprofits to promote their organization, highlight their mission, share stories, engage supporters, and drive fundraising. Creating an effective Facebook presence requires thoughtful strategy and optimization. Focus on great content, community engagement, leveraging available tools, monitoring metrics, and tailoring ads. With a dynamic, well-managed Facebook presence, nonprofits can build powerful communities and make an even greater impact.