The Best Charity Marketing Campaigns for Your Fundraisers Should All Have This One Thing in Common

Are you missing the one thing that the best charity marketing campaigns all have? You might be.

Fundraisers are the lifeblood of most nonprofit organizations. That’s no secret. What is sometimes a secret, however, are the paths to successful funding. You’ve witnessed some nonprofits raise barrels of money with ease. You’ve seen organizations that do excellent work fall flat because they can’t figure out how to raise enough money to cover expenses.

There’s more than one path to successful fundraising, and, to be honest, there are quite a few paths to failure, as well. And until you get going, it can be challenging to figure out which path you’re on at times. You have to keep your eyes open for the road signs. There is one sign, one trait, that all of the best charity marketing campaigns have in common.

Increase donations online by promoting a catchy hashtag, then keep track of your efforts by displaying everyone’s social posts in your office and on your website. Start building your social wall today.

How your team can create and carry out some the best charity marketing campaigns for fundraising

What is that one thing? A cute dog? That never hurts, but no. Celebrities? Nope. Humor? Humor can help, but that’s still not the one thing that all the best charity marketing campaigns have in common. It’s something much more simple than that – and you might already have one. It’s a catchy hashtag.

Too simple? It may seem so on the surface, but finding the hashtag that resonates with your audience, and drives funding can be tricky. Your hashtag, in conjunction with your message, needs to do three things to be successful: attract the right audience, keep them engaged, and ultimately motivate them to donate.

Not sure where to begin? There are some common charity hashtags, like #dogood, #bethechange, and #socialgood. It’s certainly worth including those in your posts, but to really stand out and build momentum, you need a hashtag of your own.

The Keep A Breast Foundation has a mission “to empower young people all over the world with breast health education & support.” To get the message out, they adopted the #checkyourselfie campaign on Instagram.

The hashtag is a brilliant piece of wordplay, as it takes advantage of the popularity of selfies and also on the slang, “check yourself,” all while reminding followers to perform monthly breast self-checks.

With thousands of Instagram posts from the foundation and from users, the hashtag clearly hits the popularity mark.

Big charities can use hashtags effectively, too, for fundraising and awareness around specific issues. For instance, UNICEF may be one of the most well-known charities in the world, and they carry out a variety of fundraising and awareness campaigns at any given point in time. For one of their campaigns around family-friendly policies in the workplace, they adopted the hashtag #EarlyMomentsMatter. The hashtag is reaching tens of thousands of people, with this post achieving over 6,200 “likes” in just two hours, and climbing to more than 15,000 in less than a week. And while it’s true that likes don’t equal donations, there’s no arguing that the awareness is a valuable first step.

It’s clear that the right hashtag can give you momentum on Instagram, but the strategy works just as well on Twitter, too. 

The World Wildlife Federation has a campaign with the hashtag #plasticpollution. In an effort to raise awareness and funding to combat plastic pollution, the WWF is using this hashtag with posts, videos, and polls. One short video has racked up nearly 10,000 views, and close to 400 retweets and 700 “likes.” It doesn’t hurt, either, that the 27-second video includes dramatic images and suspenseful music.

Of course, along with your hashtag, you also need to spread the word on your website and at your events. Promote your hashtag everywhere you can – the header of your social media pages, in a prominent space on your website, and for ongoing fundraisers, you can even share the hashtag on your printed material.

And don’t forget to share all the traction, either. You can embed Everwall on your website, so anyone who visits can keep up with all the posts that use your hashtag. (You can view a live example here for the Twitter hashtag #kittens.)