Ep. 127: Raising Major Funds Without a Social Media Audience
EPISODE 127
Raising Major Funds Without a Social Media Audience
About the Episode:
In this episode, we’re talking about Fast-Track Fundraising—how to raise more money, even if your social media audience feels tiny (or non-existent!). I’m sharing the bold strategies that helped nonprofits crush their Giving Tuesday goals—like one small organization raising record-breaking dollars with less than 1,500 followers. We’ll also take a close look at the 2024 Giving Tuesday numbers—$3.6 billion raised in the U.S. alone—and uncover why some nonprofits thrived while others didn’t. Spoiler: It’s not about going viral. It’s about activating the networks you already have and leaning into strategies like building a Social Street Team™. If you’re ready to ditch outdated fundraising tactics and unlock real growth, this episode is for you!
Here’s what you’ll learn:
Why follower count doesn’t equal fundraising success and how smaller nonprofits are raising big dollars
The problem with relying on traditional fundraising mindsets and risk aversion
Insights from the 2024 Giving Tuesday results and how $3.6 billion was raised
The power of activating a Social Street Team™: what it is, how to build one, and why it’s the future of fundraising
Real-life examples of nonprofits leveraging small but mighty teams to raise tens of thousands of dollars
How to cultivate younger donor bases and engage millennials, Gen Z, and Gen X
Why broadcasting alone won’t cut it—focus on mobilizing and activating supporters
Think you’ve reached out to “everyone” in your network? Out of ideas to get noticed and get funded? Generate leads for your nonprofit or social impact business: https://www.splendidcourses.com/prospect
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
‘’Metrics like how many followers or likes do not guarantee donations.‘’
‘’An outdated belief is that big donors only come from massive awareness campaigns.‘’
‘’You have to be willing to try things you haven't done before.‘’
‘’Mobilize people to take action using their networks.‘’
‘’Social media is the foundation to online fundraising success. You don't need to go viral to raise major funds. You need trust, influence, and the right system to activate those things.‘’
‘’Instead of focusing on broadcasting, start focusing on activating.‘’
‘’A Street Team™ is a group of passionate supporters who use their personal networks to amplify your mission.‘’
‘’Social street team is essentially a grassroots movement, but online.‘’
‘’The size of your audience does not matter as much as the people you activate to be a part of your street team.‘’
‘’A handful of committed advocates can generate exponential results.‘’
‘’You have to start cultivating a younger donor base.‘’
‘’It's not how many followers you have; it's the ripple effect of that alignment and activating your most passionate supporters.‘’
‘’The key to success isn't how loud you are; it's how bold and strategic you are.‘’
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Christina Edwards 00:05Hello friends. I'm excited for today's episode because we're talking about speed. We are talking about Fast Track fundraising today, and that's going to be the focus of today's episode is, how can you raise more, even if you have a small social media audience, or even what it feels like no social media audience. So we're going to dig into this idea of fast fundraising, not in like a sloppy kind of way, not in a transactional way, but in an impactful way, even if you don't have a massive social following. Now we're also going to take a very strong and very important look at this year's 2024 Giving Tuesday numbers and why they actually help to uncover a secret motivator to how to be such a successful fundraisers, and how nonprofits who really rocked their Giving Tuesday campaigns, meaning they hit or exceeded their goals. They saw breakthrough results, and why some saw that and why some missed out.
Okay, so giving Tuesday 2024 broke so many records with $3.6 billion donated in the US only like, let's just make that sink in for a second, $3.6 billion just from the US only. That's a 16% increase over last year. So here's what's fascinating, the organizations that received these outstanding results weren't necessarily the biggest ones, the big brand names or the ones with the largest social media following No, that's not what it took to have breakthrough results. What it took was having bold, innovative strategies, reducing friction and activating a social street team. So we're going to talk about how they did it. But first, I just shared that number with you, and if you're one of the organizations that's having like, a we didn't have that result. Or maybe you're feeling a little salty about it, maybe you're feeling a little left out. Maybe you're feeling burnt out about how your end fundraising has gone. And you're like, now you're telling me, Christina, that all these other smaller organizations are seeing such amazing results. Why not me? Don't use this data against you. Okay, we're going to use this data for you, it's like putting gas into the tank instead of feeling left out. Okay, so really take that, that concept through today's lesson is, I want that 3.6 billion to open the door of possibility for you to be like, damn if that just happened in the US. Then everything I've been telling myself, or everything the board has been telling me, or every news article that has been telling me the Philanthropy News, the trends giving is down. The economy is hard, inflation, inflation, inflation, I want you to just go, Huh? I guess that's not true when it comes to giving Tuesday. I guess that's not true when it comes to donors in the US who are all hands on deck and ready to show up on this day of magic. And many of my clients were stretching out their Giving Tuesday campaigns anyway. So this was just for that one day, which is wild to think about, if you actually, you know, stretch it out, the number is even higher. Okay, the number is even higher.
So let's dig into the problem that I'm seeing from so many nonprofit boards and leaders. They believe that their success, their organizational growth, their fundraising growth, depends on having, again, that big brand name, that big social following, those big viral moments. They think they should be trending online, and if they're not trending, and they're not having these big moments, they don't have big celebrity backing, or, you know, some sort of fancy board backing or something like that, then they can't raise major dollars. Think about that. That fear is what keeps so many nonprofits spinning, focusing on growing audiences instead of engaging the networks they already have. So you're focused on like, oh, we just need more followers. That's the problem. We just need more people. And you know, on Instagram or Facebook or Tiktok or Snapchat or wherever you're hanging out, right, instead of focusing on engaging with the networks you already have, and then and then rippling those networks out.
Now what I see, particularly with boards and sometimes with leadership too, is that fear stems from this traditional fundraising mindset. So I get it boards want to see visual, visible. Right? I get it boards. Want to see metrics that they can that are tangible, right, metrics like, how many followers, how many likes, to justify investments. But those metrics do not guarantee donations. Often, they guarantee distraction like they're looking at the wrong data. So your board may be saying, Okay, if we're going to invest in marketing, if we're going to invest in social media, if we're going to invest in this, then we only have 456, followers. We want to we want to have 10,000 and that is the wrong metric to even focus on, because 1% of your audience sees one to 10% 10% on a Great Day sees your social content anyway. So it is not about how many followers you have. And again, we're gonna go back to giving Tuesday's data, because the organizations I work with, they may have several 100 or several 1000 followers, and we have, we have organizations that hit their goal by 11am on Giving Tuesday, how fun is that wasn't even lunchtime, and they hit their goal. Okay? So it is not about follower size, okay.
The other piece that keeps leadership stuck board stuck, is this idea of risk aversion, and this is cultivated, like, culturally, of like, oh, let's just stay in what we know. It feels safe. It is safe. We've tried and true, and no one's really raising their hand and saying, you guys, tried and true is actually keeping our revenue stuck, or tried and true is actually keeping our revenue dipping. Okay? But there is on the other side of tried and true, you have to take a risk, and that adversion to risk boards are fearful of, right? They're fearful of wasting time on resources that aren't air quotes proven that campaigns that feel like a gamble, they want guarantees. I'm sure many of you are nodding along, going, yes, yes, yes, right? But that is an outdated belief. That is an outdated belief that big donors only come from massive awareness campaigns, and that's why you see this myth persist. Okay, so we really want to think about where actually can we take a lead we're actually, can we be a little risky? Where actually can we have a hypothesis like a scientist in a lab and go, we want to try this campaign in this new and different way, and here's why we think it'll work. Here's why we think it's going to have a massive impact. Cut through the noise online, and it's not proven yet. Because you know why we've never done it before, and that actually is a really good litmus test for for for winning, for having a record breaking growth year is you have to be willing to innovate. You have to be willing to try things you haven't done before.
Okay, so speaking of bold, direct strategies, let's dig in more to the data Giving Tuesday this year proved that 3.6 billion people as the time of recording this 3.6 billion donated, not people funds raised 500 million, more than 2023 it's clear that donors are primed and ready, and everything you've been reading is just keeping you stuck. Okay, yet the organizations that thrived were the ones that leaned into these bold, direct strategies that I'm talking about. They didn't necessarily rely on posting more content. This is really important. Yes, you may want to pick up your clip a little bit, but what they really did rely on that helped them achieve record breaking results was this. They relied on mobilizing people to take action. This is it? Mobilizing people to take action using their networks. Social media is not just a tool. It's really the foundation to online fundraising success, you don't need to go viral to raise major funds. What you need is trust, influence and the right system to activate those things. Okay? And that's what we teach inside the purpose and profit club with the social Street Team method. We'll get into a little bit bit of that here in a second.
So many, many nonprofits miss out on this because they're focusing on broadcasting. It's giving Tuesday, or it's our spring event, or it's blah blah blah, help us raise blah blah blah, make a difference. They're focusing on broadcasting instead of activating. They're focused on broadcasting instead of activating. They believe success is how many people see their posts, not how many people are compelled to check action. Think about that. The next time you hear a little pushback from your board, if you're like, listen, we're going to try it a little different. Or, I want your help to try it different, that would probably be when you hear more pushback, right? You want to remind them of this. Y'all we have been focusing on the wrong thing. We're focusing on just, it's like, I'm picturing like a Nerf gun, just peppering people with nerf right? We're like, versus mobilizing a team and going, let's all go. Let's go win this, right?
So let me share some examples of what this problem looks like in action. And so I've had several, several calls with organizations, I'm thinking of one right now that have had over 12, 20,000 followers on Instagram, but they raised just a couple $1,000 on Giving Tuesday because they were relying on their own posts on social media. They had not created a big, bold, compelling story. It was not high impact. It was not written for conversion, meaning, it was not written to get those donations. Okay. Compared to a small nonprofit that I work with that had less than 1500 followers, but had a dedicated street team, they raised 10s of 1000s of dollars. How can it be, right? So one is about activating, one is about mobilizing, and the other is just like, I'm just going to put it out into the world and hope and pray and fingers crossed that it's just going to go viral, right? Because apparently you're going viral equals donations. No, no, no, no, no. It is about the ripple effect. It is about mobilizing. It is about activating. It is about creating ambassadors.
So let's talk about the fix. What is the fix here? The fix here is activating a social street team. That is a method that I've created. I teach it inside the purpose and profit club, my group coaching program. What is a street team? A street team is a group of passionate supporters who use their personal networks to amplify your mission. They make direct at direct asks on your behalf. Okay, so I like to think of a street team as a combination of ambassadors. So these are people who are already in your world, who are digital online ambassadors. It's not an in person job, okay? And influencers, whoa. And influencers, these are, this means tapping into the Creator economy, online of online influencers who have hundreds of 1000s, maybe even millions of followers online, and they are using their platform, their network, to activate your fundraiser, to mobilize their audience to your fundraiser. Okay, this is the future of fundraising that you're not doing yet. Okay, and it is a very, very simple process, but no other there is no place to learn it, but inside the club, okay? And no one's doing this. We see a couple of organizations here and there sort of partner with influencers, but they're paying them, and so it feels like a paid ad versus an ambassadorship, right? An ambassadorship is an endorsement. It works so much stronger when You do it this way. You a social street team is essentially a grassroots movement, but online, you identify your most engaged advocates, you equip them with the right tools. We have scripts, we have templates, we have tool kits, and you empower them to share your mission, your causes, story and make bold asks. It works because it's personal, it's intentional. And this isn't the most fun part. It's scalable. This is how you buy your time back, right? Again, instead of solo fundraising, where maybe the ed is fundraising, or the development director is fundraising, suddenly you have this fundraising army. It's so fun, right? And it's so much more impactful. Okay, so let's look at what that looks like for giving Tuesday organizations that had record breaking giving Tuesdays that were that right now, are celebrating that right now and are maybe taking the day off, are the ones that went beyond passive outreach. They went beyond this sort of, I'm just gonna put the appeals out and hope it converts, right? They engage their most loyal supporters, that may be board members, volunteers, donors, and then they brought in influencers. They brought in new people who had Alignment. Alignment is key. You cannot just bring in Kim Kardashian and go, I hope this is what Christina said to do. That is not what I'm saying. It has to have a mutual alignment to your cause, to the community, the people you serve. Okay, that's what connects. That's what creates a breakthrough results. So the organizations that use the social Street Team method, all they're doing is three simple steps. They're identifying that alignment with influencers, right the people who believe in their mission, or may have a natural affinity for their mission, that might not know about it, yet they equip them. You have to give them a toolkit. We have a complete toolkit. And system inside the club that gives you this because this should not feel like board or committee work. This should feel easy, easy, easy. Then they mobilize and activate them. That's it. You make it fun. This day should not feel like your street team has a appointment with a dentist. You know what I mean? It shouldn't feel like a grind. It should feel hype. It should feel fun. It should feel like they're truly making a difference, and this is how we keep them coming back. This is not one and done work.
Okay, so let's talk about some examples of this in the wild. Okay, so one client that I had worked with her first street team of 10 street teamers, right ahead of Giving Tuesday, those 10 people reached out to their networks. They made personal asks. They use their platform of choice, and they had the biggest Giving Tuesday ever. 10s of 1000s of dollars were raised. They couldn't have done this without a street team. If they had had just their own, you know, straightforward, they were just using their own networks. They would have sat right around $3,000 for giving Tuesday. Instead, they hit over 20. Okay, really, really important. Another organization used their street team to 2x their Giving Tuesday goal, okay, they empowered ambassadors to share their content, to make bold asks, and they stretched out their Giving Tuesday fundraiser for a week. Okay, really, really important. This organization is already over a million dollars in annual funding. They're going to hit 2 million very, very quickly, because they're not just relying on their social audience or their email list or their donor base. They're tapping into Gen X. They're tapping into Gen Z. They're tapping into millennials in the Creator economy. This way, think about how many new donors you're going to get from a social street team that are in those younger demographics. So smart to cultivate them now. So smart. Okay, so the size of your audience does not matter as much as the people that you activate to be a part of your street team. Now, do you get that? It's not about if that organization had 452 followers on Instagram, it's about how many street teamers did they have, and collectively, what was their impact? What was their follower base, what was their visibility? It's hundreds of 1000s, and sometimes it's millions. Okay? We had another organization that worked with YouTubers and creators on YouTube, and so their visibility was enormous, right? Those YouTubers had half a million million subscribers. So really, big footprints, really, really smart. Now, you may be thinking, Okay, how do I find these people? Okay, where do I start? How do I find these people? This is the work we do in the club. We make it very, very simple. From start to finish, you can kick off your street team in less than 30 days. So don't tell yourself, this takes a lot of time. It doesn't, don't tell yourself you need 100 street teamers. You don't. You can start your first street team with five or 10 and see amazing results. The first place is the first step is starting small, with quality over quantity, and looking at the people who are already in your world because they're there. They are already there. Those creators are already there. Okay, often you're just one person away, or you haven't thought about this person. I was like, oh, yeah, that is what they do. They are a blogger, they are a lifestyle influencer, they are a burgeoning foodie chef that shares their content online, right? They're everywhere. If you're thinking, what if my network is too small, remember, it's not about size, it's about engagement. A handful of committed advocates can generate exponential results. And here's the thing about ambassadors. Ambassadors can be amazing street teamers, even if they have 235 you know, Facebook friends, amazing, beautiful. It is the power of that endorsement, right? So right now, if my neighbor sent me a text message and said, Hey, I'm fundraising for XYZ organization. Would you give? Or that same organization sent me a direct mail piece or an email and said, Hey, will you give? Come on. Which one is more likely as a cold, brand new person who has not heard of this organization, which one is more likely to actually make me give? Right? Definitely. My neighbor, somebody I trust, same thing. If she does that same thing on Instagram, where we hang out, where we're friends, where we're DMing, same thing, it's going to convert higher. If you're thinking, How do I convince my board? Show them the Giving Tuesday data to show how organizations with bold grassroots strategies are outperforming those who are just doing the same old, same old breast practices. Right? The Playbook has changed. You have to change with it. You have to be willing to take some leaps, to take some steps towards something new. And I would argue your board may be most excited about cultivating a younger donor base. They. Should be. They should be. You guys cannot be so heavily reliant on Baby Boomers as the you know, you know, over 80% of your donor base. You've got to start cultivating a younger donor base. This is a beautiful way to do it.
so let's talk about what makes this strategy so powerful and so fast, because that was the title of this episode, right? We're talking about speed. It is so fast, because when you activate a street team, suddenly it's everywhere, right? And don't forget, I think we the average person's I don't even know what the Hang on. We're going to look that up. I Okay. The average person spends over four hours a day on their phone. What is faster than that? We want to meet people where they are, okay? Your audience is hanging out on social media. You're hanging out on email. They're hanging out with their phone in their hand. Do you want to meet them where they are? And this is such a fast way and scalable way to do it. It cuts through the noise. It gets to the heart of fundraising with real endorsements, real connections and real conversations happening online. Okay? Each each street team member can have their own network, right? Remember, maybe it's 20 people, right? Maybe it's a couple 100 people, or maybe it's 10s of 1000s or hundreds of 1000s of people. It's not necessarily one of my favorite case studies, their street teamers didn't have millions of followers. It's not necessarily how many followers you have. It's the ripple effect of that alignment and activating your most passionate supporters, because your most passionate supporters want to see your mission succeed, because it aligns with their philanthropic goals, it aligns with something they want to see in the world that will change. So this is as much for them as it is for you. They're being they're literally getting able to be a part of a movement. When they become part of your street team, right? They're not like a volunteer fundraiser, and I hope that you get that distinction. This isn't like you're assigning them like an intern now you're our volunteer development person. No, they're actually becoming, they have the identity of becoming part of a movement. Think about any memberships you have, any associations you're part of, any teams you're on, right? You end up kind of being part of. Think about bumper stickers, right? Anything that's like a logo that you're like, I'm one of them. I'm with them. This is that it becomes part of their identity. Okay,
So giving Tuesday really, really showed us that donors number one are ready to give that you don't need to read any more negative headlines. You don't need to believe any of that. In fact, it's probably keeping your organization stuck if you keep Doom scrolling and catastrophizing. In fact, the key to success isn't how loud you are, it's how bold and strategic you are. Social street teams, period are the future of fundraising. They are the future of fundraising. They're the future of scaling, and they're accessible to any organization of any size who's willing to think differently. If you're like, Okay, I'm in. Tell me more. Slash, I need support. I need guidance to do this, to start or grow my street team, then you need to join the Club. The best way to do that is to hop on our wait list. We will be opening up soon ish, and the best way to do that is to hop on our wait list. That way you get early access to bonuses and any webinars that I host where I will teach you more detailed about this method, okay, stop waiting for the perfect audience and start activating the people who are already believe in you. Your first passionate, most successful, straight team members are already here. So I'll leave you with that your breakthrough, your record breaking year can still happen. All you have to do is be willing to mobilize, to ask and to to give them everything they need to be successful, and it is the most fun. Suddenly, it takes fundraising days and not just giving Tuesday again, we mobilize our street team throughout the year. So this is not something you just do at the end of the year. This is something you do at key inflection points, key campaigns, key launches throughout the year. And it's so fun to actually go into a fundraising campaign instead of feeling tight and worried and stressed and vulnerable and just like, Is this even going to work? To be like, I'm going to a party, like there's a party, there's a there's a buzz. To it when you have a street team, because there are physically so many people who are like, let's hit it, let's go right, who are all working towards that mission? Okay, I'll see you next time bye. Bye.