4 key findings from new social media and nonprofit study

Today we wanted to share a really interesting report from Survey Monkey about the positive impact that social media is having on nonprofits and their audience – most specifically how beneficial the social media world has been in building awareness for campaigns and causes. Many studies have looked at engagement rates via social media but this one actually assesses the likelihood of donations to charities for users of specific tools.

Earlier this year Survey Monkey polled over 1,000 members of their audience in the United States, all aged 18 or above. Each respondent has identified themselves as regular users of social media tools. I’ve split out some of the key findings below, each of which I feel will bring more value to the social media strategies and ideas for your own nonprofit organization.

KNOWLEDGE SOURCE VIA SOCIAL MEDIA: Fantastic data here for the audience in question when asked exactly how and where they learn about new causes and initiatives. Even bearing in mind this is an ‘active’ social media audience, over half (51%) said that the first place they learned about nonprofit causes was via social media and almost the same ratio (46%) said that social media was the most likely venue for them to learn about causes in general, both numbers highlight the growing importance of social media for building awareness. The remarkable fact is that for this audience social media is more than three times as likely to be the source of information than either word of mouth or television. Appreciating that this small sample size doesn’t represent the entire population it’s also worth noting that about 70% of adults regularly use social media and the potential moves into even sharper relief.

SOCIAL MEDIA USERS ARE CHARITY SUPPORTERS: From the same study comes news that these same people are donating to causes with high frequency. Amongst those who are regularly active on the big five social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google+) almost two-thirds (64%) have donated at least $100 to charities during the last twelve months. By way of contrast only a small fraction (7%) have not made any nonprofit contributions over the same period of time.

image courtesy https://www.mashable.com/ and data courtesy https://www.surveymonkey.com/

DONATIONS VIA SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNEL: Perhaps the most interesting element of the graphic above (courtesy Mashable) is the consistency across all five networks. Rather than look at the apparent ‘extra value’ in the case of LinkedIn for larger donations focus instead on the consistent rates shown right across the board. For those who contributed up to $100, the median rate was just under 30% of all users led by Twitter at 34.9% running down to LinkedIn at 24.6% – which represent a rather small deviation in the overall rates of giving. Similar ratios are seen for those who donated in excess of $100 with the average rate sitting at 64% but the range only encompassing 58%-71%, in short the participation levels are very healthy and notably comparable on all channels although the data does support the general consensus that LinkedIn provides the very best venue for professional and industry contacts and leans toward being more of a business avenue than a social one.

VOLUNTEERISM VIA SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNEL: Below you’ll see the same tables used for data across the channels but instead breaking out the participation rates for hours volunteered in support of nonprofits. Once more you’ll note the level and impressive results are perhaps more significant than which focusing on which tools provide the most volunteers. In fact if you allow for standard deviation across a larger sample size you’ll most likely see these differences tend to decrease rather than increase although LinkedIn may still ‘lead the way’ in no small part due to the profile of the average user of the platform as discussed above.

image courtesy https://www.mashable.com/ and data courtesy https://www.surveymonkey.com/

What the data above suggests is that there is definitely strong and measurable donor support to be found via all of the major social media channels and while the donation rates aren’t greatly removed from the general public rate the awareness factor is something that really must be considered.

As for which channels works best for you – I wouldn’t suggest reinventing the wheel and scrapping your Facebook page because LinkedIn and Google+ perform better according to this survey. Every organization is different as are the audiences for each, it’s more about determining which channels are the most effective for either certain tasks (fundraising events, news updates, volunteering etc.) or which best drive engagement with your unique and evolving audience.

___________________________________________________________________________________

For nonprofit, nonprofit fundraising, CSR business and other news, connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Pinterest or subscribe to our RSS feed.

Miratel Solutions is a Toronto call centre, eBusiness, and letter shop mail house specializing in professional fundraising services including PCI compliant inbound telephone fundraising, outbound telephone fundraising, online fundraising, lottery fundraising services, donation processing and receipting and direct mail fundraising services. We are committed to our CSR business values in all our business decisions and advancing the missions of the nonprofits we proudly serve.