If your organization has existed for some time, then you’re probably familiar with most of your major donors and the solicitation strategies that are most effective. You may even be familiar with ways to identify potential donors for your organization. However, you may struggle with balancing donor acquisition with existing meetings and other daily tasks. Conversely, if your nonprofit is fairly new, it can be challenging to come up with effective strategies for donor solicitation.
We discussed the importance of a donor management system earlier this week, especially in regards to using donor trends and analytics to be a more strategic fundraiser. However, truly great donor management systems go further, and help you improve fundraising through linking your donors’ social media profiles with the system. This means that when you have a donor or potential donor in your system, you’ll be able to see his or her public profiles on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, which you can leverage to be more effective in your position, and to be more strategic when asking donors to invest in your organization.
While several donor management systems do have this option, we recommend Salesforce for nonprofits, since it makes profile linking the easiest and most convenient. The system gathers external profile information, and connects it with the contact’s existing information through an icon. You can click on the icons, and you will be directed to the contact’s public Facebook profile, Twitter feed, or LinkedIn page. As a result, you’ll be able to see any profile updates, and you’ll be able to better engage your donors by appealing to their interests. For example, you might notice that your donors share a love of golf. As a result, you might consider hosting a golf tournament for your next fundraiser. Or you may see that a donor has recently returned from an expensive vacation, which may indicate that it might not be the best time to ask for a major donation.
In addition to improving donor solicitation, you can also use social media links to acknowledge donors’ life events. When you have the ability to keep up with what is happening in your donors’ lives, you can send cards when they welcome new family members, have graduations, or celebrate other milestones (and if you can send those notes directly from your donor management system, that’s pretty handy as well).
The benefits of linking social profiles to your donor management system isn’t just limited to your existing donors. You can also use the system to identify prospective donors. For example, a donor may post photos on Facebook of a recent event they attended for your organization, or update a status about a volunteer day. If one of their friends comments positively on the status, that person may also be interesting in investing in your mission. If appropriate, you may be able to ask for an introduction, but make sure to be respectful.
Social media has transformed the world into an interconnected global network, and as a director of development, you should be taking advantage of the opportunities these social networks provide. By using the social media linking feature on your donor management system to your advantage, you’ll be able to strengthen relationships with your existing supporters and create connections with potential new donors.