The Correlation between Facebook Page Likes and Fundraising
Insights from the GivePanels Facebook Fundraising Benchmark report 2021
January 2021: Facebook revealed in a blog post that it is removing Page Likes and focussing on Page Followers.
“We are removing Likes and focusing on Followers to simplify the way people connect with their favorite Pages. Unlike Likes, Followers of a Page represent the people who can receive updates from Pages, which helps give public figures a stronger indication of their fan base.”
Facebook bottled the changes under the tag of Page Experience.
Fascinating?
If you look back the initial pillars of success for Facebook have been these Likes. There was a time when CMOs would sit in conferences and make fun of Facebook but at the same time push PR releases that their brand is the first to get a million likes.
Furthermore, over the years, brands have realised that they don’t own the likes and likes don’t provide a big deal of conversion. The problem has been the Facebook Newsfeed and the death of organic reach.
Earlier this year my thoughts on the State of Nonprofit Digital Giving study 2020 from Bigwidesky echoed similar sentiments.
The report says: “Facebook’s News Feed algorithm makes it nearly impossible for your nonprofit to be seen unless you’re advertising.”
Even then, it’s difficult to be seen. 27% of nonprofits advertise on Facebook, and despite this, there is only a 0.18 correlation between an organization’s revenue and whether or not they advertise there. Because on Facebook you’re competing against the likes of McDonald’s and REI and political campaigns and who knows what else.
“While Facebook is huge and our experience has been that advertising there generally has positive returns, the numbers consistently cause us to question if you are really best served to invest your time on Facebook— especially if you are investing in organic tactics that are getting you a 0.2% engagement,” says the study.
But do the numbers of Facebook page likes affect Facebook fundraising?
The latest GivePanels Facebook Fundraising Benchmark report 2021 tries to answer the question:
Small can be beautiful, as it seems that the average amount raised by each fundraiser is not dependent on the number of Facebook followers on the charity’s page.
The report informs: Across all charities, the average amount raised by fundraisers increased by 63% from 82 USD in 2019 to 133 USD in 2020. This rise between the two years was seen irrespective of the number of charity followers on Facebook.
The largest percentage increase year-on-year by amount raised per fundraiser was among charities in the band with 25-50k Facebook followers - an increase of 95%.
Average income grew by an average of 70% between Q4 2019 and Q4 2020 (for charities for which we have comparable data).
Interestingly, charities with 50-99k page followers have performed especially well, with average mean income growing by 372% during this period.
The fact that a million followers might not drive half a million in donations. Since we don’t know how many are fake profiles and how many are also witnessing the donation drive on their Facebook Newsfeed. Because Facebook wants brands to spend money to be visible on the Newsfeed of fans/followers.
While small is beautiful but what if 50-99k page followers have been investing in media push and hence the income growth. I don’t see the report addressing this concern.
Peer to peer and Facebook fundraising
COVID-19 changed the face of fundraising and so was Facebook fundraising. Whilst birthday fundraisers are still most likely to be undertaken by Facebook users to raise funds for charities, 2020 saw an increase in the proportion of non-birthday/event fundraisers, to 1 in 3 of all fundraisers undertaken.
The report further adds that in 2020 the average amounts raised by Facebook fundraisers had increased compared with 2019 all activities, the standout area was in-memory and tribute fundraising, which saw the mean average increase by nearly 84%, from 400 USD in 2019 to 735 USD in 2020.
When combining fundraisers from all charities in 2019 or 2020, in-memory and tribute fundraisers raised both the highest mean average and median monetary value. In memory/tribute fundraising is incredibly powerful on Facebook as people are already connected to friends and family.
If a charity does not have Facebook Giving Tools activated they may be missing out on this income – people can’t set up a fundraiser on Facebook if the charity is not present.
Another insight worth mentioning from the report - It Pays to Engage!
The data from the report informs that when a charity engages with a fundraiser, it raises a higher average amount, irrespective of the type of fundraiser. The power of engagement appears to have a particularly high impact on in-memory and tribute fundraisers, particularly in Ireland.
Although Facebook doesn’t share contact details of fundraisers and it completely kills the purpose of acquiring donors. What’s the point if NGOs can’t connect and engage with the new donors. From Facebook’s point, it is following the walled garden approach.
Email senders raise more money
And hence email marketing stands out when it comes to raising money. 2021 Peer-to-Peer(P2P) Fundraising study by Blackbaud considers Email as an influential fundraising tool.
When we talk about P2P fundraising, by default Facebook fundraising comes to mind. But the report states that email senders have raised more money compared to Facebook fundraisers.
“Though more participants are turning to Facebook to fundraise, those who send email as a part of their fundraising strategy raise significantly more than those who are using Facebook. Though there is overlap between the two groups, it is clear that email continues to fuel our most enthusiastic fundraisers.”
The insight is simple don’t go mad behind Facebook Fundraising and try to mix mediums according to your business objective.