Blog

Will the Facebook 'Donate Button' Bring in the Money For UK Charities?

Facebook’s new “donate” button promised to make it much easier for people to donate to their favourite charities. According to one test, however, the results were not as positive as was hoped. A UK Facebook page having over 400,000 likes and 100+ new likes weekly reportedly didn’t generate any donations in the first month of displaying the button, nor did it receive many clicks.

Whatever insight can be gained from this, British charities will soon be able to test out the donate button for themselves. Facebook ‘donate’ buttons will be made widely available for UK charities this year. But do these less-than-inspiring results mean that Facebook’s ‘donate’ button is a dud? Not necessarily.

Perception could be Key

It could very well be the wording that is causing some of the doubt surrounding the donate button. For example, research has found that Facebook users are more likely to share petitions than donation requests with their contacts. What does this mean for the donate button? It could mean that we need to frame it in a different way. Because of the stronger emotional recall involved with petition actions, it may be that a petition-like call to action may be more effective than the typical ‘donate now’ statement.

Consider more than one Strategy

Although the donate button is a brand new way to garner the support your charity needs, it doesn’t mean other strategies should be abandoned. Having a charity CRM in place will allow you to aggregate all of your donation channels, and is an absolutely critical tool for measuring the success of any campaign. So once you’ve added the button to your Facebook page, you can then use your CRM to monitor its progress by comparing donations secured through Facebook with results from other channels.

‘Donate’ can mean more

Another way to look at Facebook’s donate button is to consider it not as a way to get donations, but as a way to build engagement with those who view your page. For example, the donate button allows supporters to make their way to you as opposed to you having to find them. So while they are doing that, you can be nurturing them right from your Facebook page by encouraging them to contact you or by posting items that are of interest to them.

There are also many other things you can do while your potential supporters are making their way to a donation to your cause. For example, you can take steps to let them know you are ready to answer their questions by pinning a post that states the same right on your page. In being open to questions, your potential supporter will feel more like they can trust you, and therefore be more likely to donate.

The above statement can be echoed in every channel your CRM monitors, and can provide you with the kind of raw and accurate data you need to perfect your campaigns.

Beyond these is another change in perception, which is to think of interactions with your potential donors as more of a value exchange. This is an interaction that provides the donor with a way to make a change in something they are interested in. In other words, it provides donors with the control they seek over such interactions.

It’s in these changes in perception that charities can move more easily with the transition to a digital based, community fundraising model.