Many people use different social media channels for fundraising campaigns, such as Facebook, Instagram, and more. But a lot of them fail to acknowledge the power of fundraising on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is not too different from other social media websites and offers fundraising opportunities in a similar format. Let’s talk about LinkedIn Fundraising.
What is LinkedIn Fundraising?
Fundraising is gathering money and many people nowadays use social media platforms to get their message across to the masses, and push them to donate money to a cause. Facebook and Instagram are two of the most popular social media platforms. This is why many people choose them as their preferred fundraising platform. However, not many people know about this, but LinkedIn has great fundraising potential, and people are yet to acknowledge that.
LinkedIn is a platform that supports business relationships and helps people network with all those who belong to the same sector. If used in the right way, LinkedIn can be a great platform for fundraising. Using this platform, all nonprofit organizations can connect with different platforms that may be able to raise money and contribute to a cause significantly.
Why Use LinkedIn for Fundraising and Nonprofits
When you have other platform options, you may wonder why you should use LinkedIn for fundraising. There are several reasons, the first being the audience on LinkedIn. One of the biggest differences between LinkedIn and other social media platforms is the audience. While almost everyone has an account on Facebook and Instagram, only people with professional careers use LinkedIn to network with others. The audience on LinkedIn is primarily business professionals who check LinkedIn at multiple intervals throughout the day.
This makes LinkedIn a much more powerful platform than other social media networks. Moreover, LinkedIn is a great platform to connect with donors in a setting where they are actively searching for opportunities that will help them find plausible causes to take to their companies for donations.
When you connect with these professionals on LinkedIn, you will not have to waste time exchanging pleasantries and can get right to the business. It is a very professional setting, and you will be able to effectively communicate with all those who are interested in donating and reaching out to potential investors. Consider having a pitch ready at hand, there is an abundance of pitch deck templates online to choose from.
Many companies have social responsibility quotas where they take out money for donations. If you use LinkedIn for fundraising, you will go to where the donors are. You will not have to fish around to find the right professional with a say in donation decisions and can easily leave the concerned authorities a message, and you will be good to go.
The unique audience of LinkedIn makes it easier for you to focus on finding the right candidate without wasting your time in hitting dead ends. These reasons are plenty for you to choose LinkedIn as your primary platform for fundraising.
Benefits of Using LinkedIn for Fundraising
If you are using LinkedIn for fundraising, then you are likely to get these benefits:
Helps Expand Your Network
When running a fundraising campaign, you first want to focus on how to expand your network. The main idea is to connect with as many people as possible, so you can get your message across about starting a fundraising campaign and want other people to participate. LinkedIn is a great platform for networking. Not only does it have several million users, but there are users from all over the world and from all the different sectors.
If you want to expand your network, so more and more people know about your fundraising campaign, then you can start sending connection requests to users everywhere. You can type up a message that you can paste in your greeting and immediately introduce the business you do.
This way, you will be able to connect with many people, even if they are not directly contributing to your business. They can be used to expand your network, and that may result in much better funds in the longer run.
Increases Reach
LinkedIn makes it extremely easy for users to share content and talk about it on their profiles. Users can easily go through posts shared by third-party accounts that are not even a part of their network and learn whatever they have to say. This increases the reach of your fundraising campaign, and you will be able to address more people this way.
Increasing your fundraising reach is important for gathering enough resources for your cause. If your message does not reach the right people, you will have less money, thus affecting your networking. The more reach you have, the better it is. You can ask your friends and family to share the fundraising content you post on your site, which will help you reach a much larger audience and reap the benefits of high reach.
If you want to go the extra mile, then you can also use the paid LinkedIn features, such as sponsored content, and that way, all your target profiles will be able to see your sponsored posts. These sponsored posts work like advertisements, and you can take great advantage of them if you use the tool wisely.
Raises Significant Funds
Unlike other social media platforms, LinkedIn has the best audience. This audience is full of professionals who make money and are in a privileged position to help others around them. This is why, when raising funds from LinkedIn, you may be able to gather more money than you would from other social platforms.
Spreads Awareness
Even if not many people donate to your cause, you will still create a lot of awareness for your audience. While gathering funds may be your first preference, it is also very important to raise awareness about the cause you are supporting.
You can use LinkedIn to post content regarding your cause. This will act as a platform where you constantly update your audience about all the details they must know as their social duty. Using the power of your content, you may even be able to persuade your audience to donate to the cause at hand.
This is why using LinkedIn is a great idea, as it can also act as a platform where you talk about your cause and try to get through to people and organizations. If the cause sways multinational organizations because of your awareness strategies, then that would mean great donations and funds.
Starts a Dialogue
LinkedIn is one of the best places for networking. Many people use LinkedIn to talk about different concepts and share their views. For a social or economic issue to gain momentum, it is important for more and more people to discuss it. Users start conversations on LinkedIn, and other people contribute to it by liking, commenting, and even sharing the post. This is how you can get a dialogue started about the social issue at hand and that will consequently increase the reach of your campaign, and you will be able to gather higher funds.
How to Use LinkedIn For Fundraising? [7 Steps]
Have you decided to use LinkedIn for fundraising? You must know the right steps before you can get right to it. Here are some steps that will help you with fundraising on LinkedIn:
Decide a Goal
Before you start anything, the very first step should be to decide on a goal for yourself. Having a goal is essential as it gives you the direction you need to run your fundraising campaign properly when thinking about the goal, you need to ask yourself a couple of questions that will make it easier for you to determine your goals.
For instance, you need to determine whether you aim to build a reputation for your profile, so people trust you for the fundraising, or you want to work on the fundraising alone. You can also determine the number of likes you are hoping for when you start your fundraising campaign on LinkedIn.
If you can answer these questions more effectively, you will be able to outline your goals. However, goals are not set in stone. If, further down the road, you feel like changing your goals entirely or reassessing them, then it is best if you do that.
Create The Page
Before you can start your fundraising campaign, you need to create a page for fundraising. You may have several plans when it comes to gathering funds, but if you do not have the right platform, you will not be able to carry them out. This is why; you need to create the fundraising page right away. Your audience needs to know where they can connect with you, and a LinkedIn page will be the bridge between you and your audience.
To create the page, you need to have a visible presence. When creating the page, make sure to add a profile picture and a bio that clarifies what the page is about whenever any of your audience comes across it. Once you create the page, try asking all the people you know to follow it so that you have a sizable following before you start with the fundraising campaign.
It is also a great idea to add a website link so your followers can be redirected to the website easily and get to learn more about the cause and whatever you are doing for it.
Set Up A Marketing Strategy
Now that you have your goals aligned and the LinkedIn page is ready, your next step is to devise an effective marketing strategy. There may be several things going on in your mind, and you need to condense all of them down on paper. Create a content calendar where you can include all the prompts for the content you will be posting on the site. The content calendar will map things out for you and make it easier for you to post content timely to get the most marketing benefits.
It is possible that you do not have a high budget in the beginning, and that can make things difficult. This is why you need to create a marketing strategy remaining well within your means. You can take the initiative to hand over the LinkedIn page to any of your employees or volunteer with some digital marketing experience and will be able to post things the right way.
The best way is to map out a digital marketing strategy for the first 6 months, and then you can review the strategy as you go. If you feel like something is not working or you need to add more things, feel free to include them in your content calendar.
Post Content Regularly
The biggest rule on social media is to stay active. It is very important for you to constantly engage your audience one way or another; for that, you need to post valuable content regularly. There are several pieces of content that you can post on your page, such as:
Call For Volunteers
If you are a nonprofit, you will need as many volunteers as you can possibly get. To get the volunteers, you can post on your LinkedIn profile prompting your audience to work with you as volunteers. You can write a heartfelt post where you tuck at the strings of the heart of your audience and call them to volunteer with you for the noble cause.
BTS
Everyone is curious and wants to know what goes on behind the scenes. To keep your audience engaged, it is smart to post pictures and videos of whatever happens behind the scenes. For example, if you are donating food to the needy, you can post pictures of the food collection point, or you can even show the food in transit when you are taking the food to people in need. This involves the audience in the complete process, and they feel as if they are a part of the campaign too and will be willing to invest in it.
Sharable Content
A LinkedIn page aims to create awareness, and a great way to create and spread awareness is to post shareable content. You can post different images or create infographics that your audience can easily share on their pages and increase the reach of your fundraising campaign.
Network With the Right People
LinkedIn allows you to connect with several people. You have the whole world at your disposal, but you need to network with the right people. LinkedIn, if used properly, can help you establish good relations with all potential donors and other members who may donate to your cause in the long run. There are many board members of large corporations that you can connect with and get their attention or the cause at hand. These board members may be able to convince their companies to donate to you.
If you do not have any personal connections with any of the worthwhile members, then you can easily search for them and then connect them with a proper message.
Create A Nonprofit
You are trying to build a community with all your donors and people who support the cause. For them to gather easily and connect with each other, it is important to have a shared space. Create a nonprofit group on LinkedIn, and then your supporters can use that group to talk about the proceedings of the fundraising campaign and get the desired outcomes.
Appeal Your Audience
Lastly, the main step for you is to finally appeal. You need to send a direct appeal to your audience and ask them to contribute to your cause. However, you need to ensure that you use the right words and that the message is to the point so you do not mislead anyone.
Conclusion
LinkedIn is a great platform for many reasons, and fundraising is one of its many features. If you want to start a fundraising campaign, you must not make the mistake of ignoring all the features, and potential LinkedIn has to offer. Keep the information mentioned above in mind, and you will be good to go!
If you need any more help, you can connect with some experts such as Octopus CRM, who will guide you with the rest of the details while offering you the best LinkedIn automation tools. Using the LinkedIn automation tool, you will be able to streamline all your communication and get better results.