Short, interesting piece in the Chronicle of Philanthropy discussed research that found when non-profits varied their messaging on Facebook, they received more donations.
They are careful to say that these results may only hold true for Facebook as a social media platform and that they didn’t factor in other fundraising activities like direct mail.
They looked at 752 organizations which participated in a one day Omaha Gives fundraising events in 2015 and 2020.
The types of messaging the researchers categorized were:
Beneficiaries: Explaining how the group helps people.
Goals: Encouraging donors to help reach a fundraising goal.
Gratitude: Thanking donors for their gifts.
Mission: Focusing on how the organization helps people.
Social media engagement: Asking donors to share the post or change their profile picture to boost the campaign.
Solicitation: Asking for donations.
[…]
In addition to determining that using different types of messaging works best, we found that when nonprofits frequently share messages of gratitude or that highlight progress toward their goals, they tend to raise more money than if they just ask for donations.
Obviously your mileage may vary as they say. Similar efforts on Facebook may not yield the same results in 2025. Five years is an eternity in social media years. Also the fundraising dynamics in Omaha may not be the same in other regions of the country.
One of the theories the researchers had was that varying the messaging helped reduce donor fatigue by not always using the same appeal language in every post.
