New report: Using Social Media to Meet Nonprofit Goals

By Laura Quinn, February 25, 2010
A couple of months back, we conducted a survey of nonprofit staff members who were already using social media for their organization. We wanted to know what tools they were using, but more, we wanted to know what they thought was working. Specifically, we asked about seven tools or types of tools: Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, video-sharing sites, photo-sharing sites and blogs.

The analysis and results are finally here. Download the report Using Social Media to Meet Nonprofit Goals: The Results of a Survey (free registration required)

A few quick highlights to whet your interest:
  • Generally, respondents felt social media channels were effective for enhancing relations with an existing audience and reaching out to new supporters, but considerably less so for raising money.
  • Twitter was in the top three channels for every goal, and was considered the most-effective channel for reaching potential new supporters.
  • Although Facebook was the most widely used tool by a considerable margin, and the one that those not yet using were most likely to start, it was seen as the most-effective only in terms of raising money-and then, only by a small margin.
  • MySpace was not widely used, and ranked lowest for each of the three goals. LinkedIn was considered comparatively effective for fundraising, but lagged behind everything but MySpace for the other goals.
The analysis and report were made possible with the generous support of Firefly Partners, Balance Interactive, and Beaconfire.

View all the results and analysis online at www.idealware.org/sm_survey/