(925) 413-3870
Project Night Night’s Causes Fundraising Project page.
New Facebook tab spotlights impactful projects on Causes
Guest post by Susan Gordon
Causes
Causes has just released a fundraising tab for Facebook Pages, which is great news for nonprofits that have been investing in Facebook but struggling to find the right fundraising solution for that audience. It’s also a huge opportunity to bring your social media community into the inspiring fundraising campaigns you’re running through other channels. So far this year, $3 million has been donated to Causes fundraising projects, and nonprofits of all sizes, budgets and missions are finding they are the most effective way to do online fundraising.
To add the tab to your Facebook page, you can follow the step-by-step instructions on the Causes blog or follow these simple steps:
- Go to www.facebook.com/causes, log in to Facebook and click “Add to my Page.”
- Go to your Page and click Causes in the left sidebar.
- Click the big green “Get Started” button, where you’ll be able to find your nonprofit and add it to your Page. The default tab will look like this:
If your nonprofit would like to customize this tab, add videos/photos, price points, etc., create a Causes Fundraising Project and your tab will look like the one at the top of this article from Project Night Night. (See? If your nonprofit does not have a Causes Fundraising Project, your page will look like this.)
Free, customizable, socially enabled donation pages
In addition to being able to feature a project on your Page, Causes Fundraising Projects are free, customizable and socially enabled donation pages that nonprofits can promote through all their social media channels. Fundraising Projects help nonprofits tell inspiring stories of impactful projects ($10,000 for a school, $2,304 for a scholarship, $54,000 for a rally, etc.) that motivate supporters to donate. After each donation, donors are then asked to promote the project to their networks of friends and family on Facebook. Causes also provides back-end donation tracking and follow-up tools to help you build relationships with donors in the Nonprofit Partner Center.
If your nonprofit is ready to jump-start your social media fundraising, I’d suggest the following:
- Create a Causes Fundraising Project
- Feature the Project on your Facebook Page
- Send consistent and compelling messages through multiple channels until your project is funded.
- Celebrate and do it again!
Project Night Night raises nearly $35,000
Here are some great examples of nonprofits that have added the new Causes tab to their Facebook Page and are running effective fundraising campaigns:
• Project Night Night is a small nonprofit in San Francisco that provides comfort to children in homeless shelters, They have used Causes to raise almost $35,000, most of which has come through their Fundraising Project Help Comfort 2,000 Homeless Children in the U.S.!
• Room to Read is another small nonprofit in San Francisco that builds libraries throughout the developing world. They are about to build their first Causes-funded library in Delhi, India, after raising more than $18,000 for their project Give 300 Children Access to their First Library Filled with Colorful Books. They are now raising money to send 40 Cambodian girls to school.
• Operation Smile is featuring a general fundraising ask on the Causes tab of their Facebook Page. They have raised over $33,000 on Causes from a combination of general fundraising asks and Fundraising Projects like Help Change a Child’s Life Forever.
Susan Gordon is the director of nonprofit services for Causes.com. She helps nonprofits tap into the potential of 150 million causes users run to raise funds and build communities that change the world.
