Facebook Ads For Nonprofits (A Quick Guide)

Running any sort of fundraiser for a nonprofit can be a daunting task. With the advent of the Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Ads, there are a wide variety of options available to help fundraise for your nonprofit organization.

Now, with Facebook Ads for nonprofits, you will be able to reach new target groups who may be interested in your organization. It’s all just a few simple clicks away! 

All you need is a basic budget and you will easily be able to use this feature to effectively and efficiently scale your organization while driving tangible results. 

Facebook ads are extremely useful in helping nonprofits and other organizations reach out to new audiences. The best part is that today, you can easily run an advert on just about any budget!

What Are Facebook Ads?  

While having an active Facebook page where you share updates is great, only 2.6% of Facebook Page posts actually reach their audience. This statistic just shows that you need to do something extra to reach your target audience to boost participation at your virtual fundraisers.

So, let’s talk about Facebook Advertising.

For those of you who may be new to this feature, Facebook ads are designed to boost your posts and, well, to advertise your offering, events, services, and anything else! They can help you get more likes, increase your viewership, and reach your target audience. 

This increases engagement - driving more traffic to your websites and increasing awareness of your virtual fundraiser or auction. Ads should generally entice users to take some sort of action, whether this is signing up, donating, or clicking ‘attend’ on your event.

Facebook ads work on just about any desktop or mobile device. This gives you ultimate flexibility to create adverts and designs that suit your organization’s brand while still being unique and effective. 

There are two main types of Facebook ads for nonprofits, these are: 

Call to Action Posts 

By using Facebook Ads Manager, you can boost your posts. This will help you get more likes and make your page more visible. This will also encourage people to visit your website, attend your virtual auction or other events, view your content, sign up for newsletters, or simply donate. 

The Ads Manager allows you to effectively manage this while providing you with feedback and insight to help you better target your chosen audience.  

Engagement Posts 

These Facebook ads for nonprofits are designed to help you increase the number of people who see a specific post on your page. These are ideal for posts that already have above-average engagement. It will simply give it the nudge it needs to reach wider and larger audiences. 

It is crucial to remember that posts without any existing engagement will be unlikely to garner or increase engagement even with a paid boost. 

Benefits of Using Facebook Ads For Nonprofits  

There are many benefits that come from using Facebook ads to raise money for your organization. Most important, is the fact that you can run a Facebook advert with pretty much any budget. This is perfect for smaller nonprofits looking to scale up or even larger-scale organizations who want to reach different target audiences.

Facebook ads for nonprofits are also an easy and effective way of communicating with your target audience. You can easily send calls to action that target specific demographics, behaviors, or interests. You can also use Facebook ads to find new supporters or donors outside of your existing community. 

As the world moves digital, virtual auctions are becoming more and more popular. Hosting auctions online means that more people can participate as there isn’t a restriction of a physical location. 

Facebook ads are an excellent way of promoting your virtual auctions and other online events. You can reach more people, while also targeting your existing audience and making them aware of your event. This will help to drive more traffic to your auction so that you can raise more funds for your nonprofit. 

Why Use Facebook Ads For Your Nonprofit?

There are three key reasons why all nonprofits, especially ones that are starting up, should allocate a small amount of money for Facebook advertising. These include:

1. Facebook ads for nonprofits work the best when there is a particular target or goal in mind. Facebook will direct you, forcing you to ask yourself what the purpose of your advert is and what you want it to achieve. The more specific and focused your advert is, the more likely it is to be a success.
2. Your advert will be integrated into News Feeds. With television or cinema, adverts are scheduled and sometimes a bit invasive. However, social media seamlessly integrates adverts into users' News Feeds. This will likely result in users clicking on your advert and taking the desired actions.
3. Facebook ads allow you to constantly measure your progress. Now, you are able to make tweaks to your ads as you go along. This enables you to understand what works and what does not in your various campaigns. You can then make changes and tweak your strategies to improve results.

How to Make Great Ads for Nonprofits

There are a few tricks to ensure that your Facebook ads will be engaging. These include the following:

• Use colorful and eye-catching images and visuals
• Know your target audience and create an ad that feels like it belongs in their Facebook News Feed
• Incorporate a specific and measurable call to action in the ad or visuals
• Make sure users are aware of exactly what is expected of them to ensure each click turns into an action

Conclusion 

Advertising through Facebook is becoming more and more popular in the nonprofit world. A fair majority of the world use Facebook for their day-to-day lives. As such, it is the perfect place to raise funds for a good cause.

With Facebook ads for nonprofits, you can reach a larger prospective donor base, while encouraging engagement and action from your current donors and other supporters.