Musician’s Guide to Charity Fundraising [Cyber PR]
Many artists do not feel comfortable posting about themselves endlessly or hyping up their new releases constantly. For those of you who fall into this category, you will love this post. A fabulous way to inspire and unite with your tribe is by creating a charity fundraiser which is easy to share on socials, and a great way to get fans involved in the mission you believe in.
_____________________________
Ways to Garner Support & Gather Your Tribe
By Ariel Hyatt of CyberPR
As a performer, you are a person of influence. This can go a long way in creating awareness and garnering support for charities or causes that you care about and in today’s world there are many ways to do this and you may even end up helping yourself in the process.
Crowdfunding Sites
- GoFundMe: One of the most popular websites people use for fundraising especially when donating to charities.
- PayPal: While often used for regular business transactions PayPal can also be used to receive donations for non-profit organizations
Sites like these are great for Crowdfunding with a charity angle because you can set a goal and track your progress and see who is donating. Also, possibly consider setting up giving levels–offer something of value in return for support.
Benefit Concert
- This is a great way to get people involved in your cause and get your music heard!
- A great guide on how to effectively program and execute a benefit concert is: How To Do A Benefit: Guidelines for Performing Artists and Others Who Want to Make a Difference by Jen Chapin
- Make sure there is a clear way for people donate at the concert and your audience knows just how your concert will benefit or contribute to your cause.
- Consider connecting with other artists and working together to even more effectively reach your goal.
- Offer prizes or merchandise giveaways to incentivize attendance
Social Media Campaigns
Social media is, as always, going to be your best friend as you set out to get people on board with supporting your cause; Some platforms, like Facebook, have streamlined ways for you to do so. Here are a few things that you may want to keep in mind as you get started.
- Be clear and conscience in your mission and goal with the fundraiser. People should know why you support this cause and, more importantly, why they should too.
- Make sure a way people to get involved is obviously displayed, such as a link to a crowdfunding site or directly to the charities website.
- Make sure to occasionally recognize donors and other supporters of your cause. It’s always to say Thank you!
- Keep people up to date on the progress of the fundraiser
- Make use of relevant hashtags and if necessary start your own hashtag campaign
- You can always schedule posts to take out some of the work of remembering to post
- When you can Boost your posts to put it in front of more people
- Make sure to invite friends and family to support and share
- Don’t be afraid to work with other artists and organizations
- Use similar strategies that may have worked for your peers
- Create a video of yourself talking about the campaign
- Include in posts, newsletter, etc.
Twitter can be an essential tool for your charity fundraising efforts because unlike Facebook, it’s acceptable to post more frequently throughout the day. This allows you to be consistent with audience engagements and increase traffic to your fundraising sites.
Writing Your Tweets:
- Send tweets to public figures who may have a connection to your cause asking them to spread word or even to donate. This will help increase your reach, especially if the influencer retweets your content. When doing this, include a period before the “@” so the tweet isn’t sent as a “direct message” and can be viewed on your main feed as well as your followers’ feeds. Make these tweets personal to increase the chances they will respond.
- Use relevant hashtags, even create your own specific to your fundraiser to streamline traffic directly to tweets associated with your fundraiser.
- Ask your followers to retweet the links to your fundraiser to aid your efforts and thank them when then do. Again, make these tweets personal to create strong relationships with your audience.
- Use Twitter polls to engage your audience. You can use this feature to ask for campaign ideas, get feedback from an event, or as a way to continue to build meaningful relationships with your followers.
- Focus your tweets around statistics, lists, how-to’s, or quotes when you aren’t promoting your fundraiser. Stats can be about your fundraising goal status or stats relevant to your cause. Sticking to these four categories will help you create consistent content that provides value to your followers.
- Consider shortening your links, using a service like Bitly, to minimize the number of characters in your tweets.
And Also…
- Link to crowdfunding site or Facebook in the bio. You should also pin your initial tweet introducing your fundraiser to your profile so it’s the first thing people see when they stumble upon your profile.
- Retweet posts from the charity’s Twitter or from accounts relevant to the cause to let your fans know what you’re supporting. This is good for connecting your audience closer to the cause as well as supporting others involved with the cause.
- Live tweet any events you host for your fundraising campaign as well as any other events you attend related to the cause.
Thankfully Facebook makes fundraising very simple! Like any crowdfunding site they allow you to create a fundraiser with the ability to set a goal and track progress. The benefit of this being through Facebook is that you can share it with your followers so that they can donate directly to the organization as they scroll through their feed and it’s very simple to create and connect with a charity.
To create a fundraiser for a charitable organization on Facebook click here or follow these steps:
- Click Fundraisers in the left menu of your News Feed.
- Click Raise Money.
- Select Nonprofit/Charity.
- Select a charitable organization, choose a cover photo and fill in the fundraiserdetails.
- Click Create.
- Makes sure to share the fundraiser and invite your friends and family to support.
- Notice! Facebook does NOT have a limit to the number of friends that can be invited to support your fundraiser!
- Makes sure to share the fundraiser and invite your friends and family to support.
Although Instagram does not have a way to create a fundraiser it can still be a great tool just by simply posting about the cause you are supporting and directing people to the crowdfunding site you are using or straight to the donation page of the charity’s website.
Another thing to consider when using Instagram for fundraising is taking advantage of the shopping feature on Instagram. You could start a promotional campaign where profits from your merchandise sales go to the charity you are supporting.
Here’s How to Start Using the Shopping Feature on Instagram
- Shopping feature on Instagram
- You can use this feature in conjunction with your campaign by simply monitoring your sales and donating a portion of your profits to the charity you have chosen to support.
- To use this feature your account must first be approved for shopping on Instagram
- Start by looking over their merchant agreement and connecting your profile to a Facebook catalog.
- Approval may take a few days as they review your profile but once you’re approved you just follow a few easy steps:
- Tap to go to your profile
- Tap the Get Started alert at the top of your profile
- If you don’t see the alert in the image above, tap
- Tap Shopping
- Tap Continue
- Select a product catalog to connect to your business profile
- Tap Done
Here is an article that showcases some artists who are very strong on Instagram for some inspiration.
Mailing List
As a musician, you should already have a newsletter and mailing list to keep your fans up to date on tour dates, new music, and other news relevant to your music career. Use your mailing list to your advantage and plug your fundraiser in your newsletter to your fans. Your fans may share the same interests as you, therefore may value the similar causes and may feel compelled to donate since it is something you care about.
Here’s How You Can Use Your Mailing List for Fundraising:
- Have an enticing subject and heading to make your fans actually want to read about the cause your supporting. You know your audience best, you know how to grab their attention.
- Include the link to the platform you chose for your fundraising, such as GoFundMe and Facebook. Another option would be to use PayPal’s donation button feature, which is easy to embed but fans may feel less compelled to donate if it looks like they’re just sending money to a PayPal and not an actual cause.
- Include stories of impact from the organization’s successes. It provides context for your fans in regards to what their donations will be going towards. Linking to outside sources, such as blogs covering the cause or charity, provide another way for your fans to learn more about what you’re fundraising for and make them feel obligated to donate.
- Structure and format your newsletter with our best practices
Ariel’s Birthday Fundraiser
For my birthday this year, I’m asking for donations to AL Otro Lado Inc. I’ve chosen this nonprofit because they are a binational organization that works to offer legal services to deportees and migrants in Tijuana, Mexico, including deportee parents whose children remain in the U.S.
Even though the policies have been reversed many asylum seekers will need help and assistance and advocacy.
I found out about this organization here if you want to read more.
I hope you’ll consider contributing as a way to stand in solidarity with me.
