Creating Nonprofit Community Engagement

Email lists are good. Nonprofit Community Engagement is even better.

Large or small, non profit organizations have to work hard to grow their following and even harder to keep content fresh, updated and interesting. On top of that, non profit organizations have to work even harder to convert their following from an interested audience to an engaged and involved set of supporters.

Nonprofit community engagement may come in the form of donations, but it may also be through social action and volunteering. While the hard work on social interaction goes towards building connection, delivering content and strengthening rapport, the algorithms have been making it more and more difficult to reach a wide audience without advertising and boosting posts. Referral traffic, organic reach, and social engagement have been declining. It has become clear that an advertising budget is necessary to improve visibility and presence.

On the other hand, email marketing is on the rise and digital payments within social networks are expected to bring new life into online fundraising – especially with new features available through Facebook, WordPress and Giving Platforms. There are lots of excitement surrounding good things to come!

These are all great fundraising tips. Here are some more for increasing nonprofit community engagement and creating excitement around your organization or cause:

• Make your content Meaningful, Emotional, Consistent and Memorable.
• Include testimonials and stories from people who support your organization or have received support.
• Explain what the benefits one may derive from supporting your organization.
• Explain how donations are allocated. Include imagery to humanize the data.
• In your copy, think about why the cause is important to your audience.
• Include videos to show the personality of the organization.
• Include headlines that are compelling and catch attention.
• Reflect on the reasons as to why your audience is likely to donate.
• Clearly define the steps for giving to your campaign and do not forget to include the next steps for getting more involved after giving.
• Consider whom your emails are coming from and how you’re segmenting – are you creating connections with your subscribers?
• Prepare an email sequence for onboarding new mailing list subscribers.
• Use split-testing to see how changes to your copy affect nonprofit community engagement.
• Clearly define your call-to-action (and test different ones to see which ones work best).
• Test the timing for email sends and social posts. Watch your analytics and optimize your schedule so that you can catch your audience’s interest.
• Create an editorial calendar to organize your content ideas and delivery.
• Be sure to thank your donors and recognize their generosity.
• At least twice a month, share stories that tug at the heartstrings.
• Use high-quality graphics for your fundraising campaigns and events.
• Donate to your non profit annually to be able to better understand the user-experience of a donor.

Learn even more about improving nonprofit community engagement through split-testing. Reach out to us and schedule a free 20-minute strategy session.