Friend. Fan. Donor.
Social Media Has Not
Replaced the Need to Nurture

By Paul Weber, Chief Entrepreneur Officer
Entrepreneur Advertising Group (EAG)
Kansas City, Missouri

Editor’s Note: this month, we welcome back Paul Weber, who is C.E.O. (Chief Entrepreneur Officer) of Kansas City-based Entrepreneur Advertising Group (EAG) and who has helped us help our clients raise awareness of their missions the past six years and navigate the largely uncharted waters of social media. Paul tweets, blogs, and can be found on all sorts of social media. You can find him on Facebook.

My friend, Fran, is a social media junkie, regularly spending time on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and so on. She posts and participates, makes friends and becomes a fan of every hip new restaurant or store in town.

Recently, Fran started becoming a Facebook fan of local nonprofits. Not just some local nonprofits, she became a fan of many organizations in many different sectors.

Fran likes worthwhile causes – from a distance. Fran is not a donor.

Social media, in all its forms, has created a wonderful opportunity to engage your constituents on a deeper, more emotional level. More importantly, social media allows your constituents to speak on your behalf while spreading the word about your cause.

Like any new media, social media forums have created a whirlwind of activity, while measurement and assessment of these tools as fundraising mechanisms has lagged. For smaller nonprofits, there just aren’t the resources available to measure the effectiveness of such tools while the pressure to ‘join in’ is great.

Fortunately, there is little harm in opening your nonprofit to a broader audience through social media. Simply keep in mind that there is not a direct correlation between Facebook fans and donor dollars.

What a well-managed social media campaign does offer a nonprofit is the means to tell your story to a wider audience with more frequency. Better yet, it allows others to act as living testimonials to your mission.

A carefully constructed, consistent and engaging social media program is a nonprofit’s best friend. But even the best social media efforts do not replace the necessity of good donor stewardship.

We live in an era of consumer preference. As consumers, we have multiple ways to gather information, shop and give feedback about our experiences. Social media has exponentially increased the number of voices being heard every day. Many of those voices are talking about philanthropy and nonprofits, including yours.

Engage in social media with your constituents, donors and followers as if they were sitting across the table from you. Speak with sincerity and speak from the heart. But remember that when it comes to fundraising, social media is just one tool in your arsenal.

Today, my friend Fran is not a donor. But the smart nonprofit will recognize her interest in their organization through her Facebook activity and reach out to her in any number of ways. Someday, I predict Fran will give … when she is asked.