Simple Tips: Facebook Events For Fundraisers
From writing a nearly perfect email, let’s move to something more social this time around. Starting with Facebook, we’ll show you how it’s possible to get word out about your personal challenge and raise money for good in a few minutes.
You must admit. Facebook is like a jungle. Pages? Groups? Messages? Which to use and spam tell your friends about your fundraising efforts before time runs out? Again, here are some helpful tips on how you can reach that seemingly unreachable goal with the under-used Facebook Events!
What? Shouldn’t I use a Page or a Group?
Well…perhaps, but let’s face it. There are a few things to consider before setting everything up:
- Your fundraising campaign will only last for a few days or weeks.
- There are too many Groups or Pages out there that you ignore more frequently than an interesting Event you’re invited to.
- Content is what keeps a Group or a Page alive. Do you have regular content to keep people coming back and spreading the word?
Get the drift? Not convinced? Let’s compare each of their important features side by side to get a better look:
| Features | Pages | Groups | Events |
|---|---|---|---|
| Invite Friends to join | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Members receive notifications on posts to wall | X | ✓ | ✓ |
| Permanent link on members’ home page | X | ✓ | ✓ |
| Message all guests (straight to Inbox) | X (Goes to Others) |
✓ (Chat with Group) |
✓ |
| Disappears after campaign | X | X | ✓ |
| Invite people to join by email | X | X | ✓ |
While it looks like a tough fight between Facebook Groups and Events. Trust us. Group members can always disable notifications from a group, but not necessarily an event. Pick your tools wisely. 
So, now what?
Well, now it’s time to brew the special event page that will dazzle your friends into donating. This time we’ll let you follow our imaginary fundraiser “Joy Giving” as she embarks on setting up her own event.
Step 1: Create the Event
Joy starts by going to facebook.com/events and clicking on the “Create an Event” link. On the next page, she fills up the details about her fundraising campaign.
She plans to raise funds via losing weight for the Singapore Heart Foundation. (3 days is truly, really ambitious. But play along with us, will ya?) Clearly, she’s on the right track to getting some karma points!
Oops, she nearly forgets to link her fundraising page! But she’s got it down where it’s important.
Done in 2 minutes. She’s not too worried about the look right now since she’s starting off.
Step 2: Spice the Event page up
After taking a look at her finished page, she feels that something’s missing. She wonders how she can make it more lively and attractive.
Hrmm….maybe it’s the image. Some funky image will definitely help in attracting her friends to donate. 3 important things strike out to her. The image needs to have:
- a picture of her “trying” to lose weight
- the logo of the charity she’s raising funds for
- and…be sized 180×540 pixels to make use of the space.
After a little searching and digging up some photos, she created her perfect photo and she clicked on “Edit Event” to upload it to her event page. She clicks on the “+ Add event photo” link and selects her photo. After saving the changes…Voila!
The page looks a little better. Perhaps she could work a little more on the body text. However, she can’t wait to get right started on telling her friends all about her efforts first.
Step 3: Spread the word
Below the event profile picture, she clicks on the “Select Guests to Invite” button, and starts selecting her friends she knows will give to the event. She also chooses to spread the word to her email list. The more, the merrier!
Adding a personal message as a gentle plea for donations, she clicks submit and waits joyfully for some responses.
Step 4: Send out updates of progress along the challenge
Joy, joy, joy! Out of 1000 invitees, 30 imaginary friends have decided to be supportive donors by “Attending” while a few others are still deciding.
To slowly convert them, she shows her progress via some photos of before and after. Hrmm….will this convince the fences-sitters?
Step 5: Thank the supporters
Her fundraising challenge is over and done with (yes, after 3 days). It’s time to thank every 50 of them for a wonderful support and all the money she’s raised.
Thanks to Facebook Event’s nifty targeting, she gets to send a personalised message to those who donated, and those who didn’t. Pretty cool. Looks like she’s going to throw a party for those who DID donate. Wish we could join
So ends another story of a happy fundraiser who’ve succeeded in her challenge. Perhaps you could be one too!
Give it a try and let us know how it went. Also, don’t forget to leave any questions or further suggestions in the comment box. Watch out for more tips to come!