What can Facebook do for you? Most charities now have a website but find it difficult to recruit new supporters and raise money using their website alone. One good way for you to reach out to your service users and donors is by meeting them where they are on the net through social networking sites such as Facebook. But can charities benefit from having a presence on these networks?
“What can Facebook do for you” was the topic of a free webinar held by the Institute of Fundraising Technology Group in December 2008. Martin Campbell of Baigent Ltd and Sam Chamberlain of Christian Aid were able to share their own experiences in the webinar and explore issues such as: the features of Facebook that charities can use to their advantage, the goals of building a Facebook application and addressing the issue of control over the content that users post on the site.
In his presentation, which you can view by following the link below, Martin guides you through the strategic planning steps that are essential to creating a successful Facebook application, a part of the process that is often forgotten by charities. In order to develop this strategy, Martin recommends that not-for-profits look for ways to overlap the needs of the organisation, the needs of their users and the correct channels that supporters will use to satisfy this need. For example, if the users have a need to share their experiences with other supporters then they will be likely to use social networking sites, and if an organisation has a need to actively engage users, this is an area where the needs of supporters and the organisation overlap and web 2.0 tools can be used successfully by the charity. The success of this strategic approach is shown by the fact that the PrayLive application which Baigent developed for Scripture Union is now used by over 13,500 people.
When asked which issues were raised at the end of the webinar, Martin Campbell said: “The questions raised were varied across the whole spectrum of this very large area of expertise. Many people wanted to hear the practical answers to “how do I do this” questions. I hope that we were able to give some guidance here, and I think that many will also learn from the experience in the projects that we discussed and take a step to evaluate the place of the social network in their overall web and marketing strategy.”
If you'd like to see Martin’s presentation please
click here