Online Promotion: 7 Free Nonprofit Tools
A solid, online promotion plan comes in two parts: establishing your non-profit presence in online circles, and monitoring your reach as you begin using new promotional tools.
Here are seven free nonprofit tools you can use to extend your non-profit’s reach, as well as keep an eye on your ongoing progress to help you tailor your content for each audience.
Change.org
Change.org is a great tool for any non-profit that takes part in advocacy. Take your advocacy campaign online and use it to create free, online petitions. Use Change.org’s featured petitions and built-in sharing tools to get your supporters to read and sign your petition.
Change.org offers robust guides on starting a petition, promoting it, and keeping signers engaged as the petition progresses. It’s easy to sign up for an account, to create a petition, and it looks great on mobile devices.
Ustream.tv
Ustream allows you to stream anything to your audience—from a fundraiser, to a protest, to simply documenting the great work that your non-profit does. Create your own online TV station, and use it to broadcast your work and your message to the world in real time.
Charity Miles App
Engage those millennials and active people who want an alternative and seamless way to donate by setting up a Charity Miles account. This allows donors to raise funds for charities they support when they walk, run, or bike. Write to Charity Miles to become a nonprofit on their list.
JustCoz
Spread the word about your non-profit’s mission on Twitter, and take donations in Tweet form with JustCoz.org. If you have a solid supporter base, but want to reach even more, you can enlist them on JustCoz to spread the word about your organization, without having to re-engage them each time your organization has a new initiative.
YouTube for Nonprofits
The YouTube Nonprofit Program is absolutely free if your organization qualifies. It helps you activate your cause by telling a compelling story and launching a YouTube campaign. Furthermore, the platform allows your donors to donate through the video platform.
HootSuite
HootSuite is a free tool for managing multiple social media accounts including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and more. It also allows you to monitor lists and schedule posts. It makes social media accounts easy to use for a team of contributors or just one, and it is a great way to streamline your promotion schedule. A 20% discount is available for non-profit organizations that meet specific criteria.
Facebook Cheat Sheet
The Facebook Cheat Sheet is your one-stop shop for making a clean, attractive-looking Facebook page for your non-profit organization. What dimensions should your cover photo and profile picture be? The list is updated regularly in response to changes in Facebook’s style and design.
It is important to understand the difference between tools such as these and larger-scale auction software. The tools we’ve listed and others (such as Constant Contact and MailChimp) are to be used in conjunction with auction software. These tools are your marketing megaphone, whereas the software itself is the functionality of donor management, payment processing, check-in/check-out, and more.
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