How to increase fundraising engagement on a Giving Day with social ambassadors

Texas Christian University has been running Giving Days since 2014, and social ambassadors have played an important part in their success. This post looks at how TCU increased alumni and supporter engagement with their Giving Days, along with tips on finding the best social ambassadors from Harmonie Farrow, TCU’s Director of Loyalty Giving Programs.

How social ambassadors can contribute to the success of a Giving Day

The power of social media can be used to increase the effectiveness of a Giving Day by encouraging a younger audience to share engaging messages with their peers, helping further expand donor participation. This maximizes the chances of increasing both the relevant audience and donations received by the campaign.

A good social ambassador is someone who already feels engaged enough to support your campaign, and who also has a significant network to allow them to help scale the campaign.

TCU managed to overcome the challenge of finding good ambassadors by using Hubbub’s Ambassador tool, which streamlines and enhances the recruitment and management of ambassadors. This led to a very successful Giving Day and a tripling in the number of social ambassadors.

How TCU involved social ambassadors in its Giving Day

Describe your social media activities for your last Giving Day

On their last Giving Day, social media ambassadors had three primary objectives: to raise awareness of the day in advance, to promote social media challenges and to encourage friends and followers to make a gift. Having ambassadors promote social media challenges (such as posting pictures of pets in TCU gear to win a prize) offered opportunities to share messages that weren’t always about making a gift and brought fun to the day.

How important was social media for your Giving Day?

Extremely important! Our ambassadors provided information and a case for support in their own voice through their own social media accounts, which lent some authenticity and shared ownership to the day.

The institution benefited from having partners who could advocate for the giving day alongside leadership.

What makes a good social ambassador?

Good social media ambassadors share communications when asked. Great ones adjust and tweak messages in their own voice. They are advocates as passionate about the cause as the organization is. They support through their time, talent and resources.

What’s your #1 tip when starting to identify the right kind of ambassadors?

When starting to recruit social media ambassadors, you want to find people at the intersection of social media savviness and enthusiasm for your cause or organization.

Some ambassadors will be enthusiastic but less active on social media, while others will be active on social media but less interested in the cause. The best ambassadors demonstrate both qualities. If struggling with where to start, look at who is interacting with the institution’s social media channels.