Tips for Finding The Right Influencers For Your Nonprofit

  1. Home
  2. Nonprofit Fundraising

Tips for Finding The Right Influencers For Your Nonprofit

Collaboration with influencers is an ideal strategy to really bring your nonprofit organization to the forefront, especially in terms of visibility. Influencers are people with thousands or millions of followers on social media. Influencer marketing is when an organization or brand takes the help of influencers to promote their products or in the case of nonprofits, their cause and campaign. It brings with it the support of followers and donors. 

In today’s world of strong social media influence, reaching out to influencers and partnering up with them does make a lot of sense. According to Google Trends, searches for the term “influencer marketing” grow by 5000% each month. Having influencers as a backup to your mission also goes a long way in the process of growing your organization. The question here is, how do you find the right influencers that are perfect for your organization? Read on to find the answers. 

Strategy is a must

It is a given that fundraising for nonprofits and nonprofit management requires a lot of planning. In the same way, finding influencers for your nonprofit also requires you to sit back and decide on a goal. Although the mission remains the same, it is not necessary for all your campaigns to have the same goal. 

  • Work on a clear and actionable goal setting.
  • Keep a budget and the factors that will measure your progress. Decide your KPIs such as engagement rate, increase in donation and supporters, etc. 

It is a great idea to decide on the platforms that you would be targeting as different platforms may reach out to different sets of audiences. For example, Instagram can help you reach younger supporters while LinkedIn has a better chance at reaching corporate sponsors and partners. 67% of organizations use Instagram for influencer marketing

Look for a common belief

As a nonprofit organization working towards a cause, it will be difficult to work with influencers who do not feel as strongly about your mission as you do. Therefore, keep in mind the importance of shared values and beliefs as you create the list of nonprofit influencers you would be reaching out to. Suppose you are an organization working to help sick children, then an influencer who has worked with kids would be a great choice. There should be an alignment of thoughts that will further smoothen the entire process for your nonprofit. Sharing the same vision will result in the deliverance of the right message. 

Search and research

The internet and social media has made it easier to find influencers who are already supporting the same cause as your organization. Use this as your leverage in finding what you are looking for.

  • Look up on nonprofit related trends that are doing the rounds. Nonprofit roundup articles featuring different influencers can also help you narrow down your choices.
  • Make use of relevant hashtags that are relevant to your mission. Hashtags like #humanitarianaid and #nonprofitcollaboration are great to start with. 
  • Paid tools for influencer databases and research are an option as well. Platforms like BuzzStream and Pitchbox are excellent examples of paid tools. 

There are many trusted websites that will give you a list of nonprofit influencers that you can reach out to. Take time to study their profiles, the work that they’ve done and see which ones would work best for your nonprofit. 

Communicate and follow up

Just because you dropped a message to collaborate in the inboxes of influencers doesn’t mean you’ll get a quick response. It is also possible that you will not get a reply at all. Influencers, like every other working professional, are busy people and might not be checking their social media dms and inboxes all the time. The solution to this is to try every way possible to reach the influencers that you want to work with. Emails are a great way to communicate business queries; given that finding an email id is not that hard anymore. Choose a subject line that is to the point, detailed and not very lengthy. Do not forget to follow up and be quick with giving a response back. 

What’s in it for the influencers?

In any kind of partnership of collaboration, your nonprofit should be clear on what you are offering back. A paid collaboration would mean finding influencers that your budget can accommodate. 36% of brands tend to pay influencers with free products. Providing monetary compensation is not the most ideal scenario for nonprofit organizations. But there are some best practices you can adopt. 

  • Offer incentives in the form of VIP Benefits at events, galas, client meet and greet, etc.
  • Create an appreciation post for each influencer, linking the same to their respective social media profiles and websites.
  • Find opportunities to have them as special guests or speakers at seminars or webinars that your nonprofit might organize in the future. 

Conclusion

Influencer marketing in simple words, is all about rising by lifting others. It is a chance to reach new audiences and get your story told by well known individuals who have the same focus as your organization. It also involves growing your circle of supporters and donors by growing your online following. The point is to push your mission forward by working with the right influencers. 

Add your first comment to this post