Sustainable Social for Nonprofits with Canva

Sarah LaFemina • May 18, 2021

For nonprofits, social media is one of the most effective methods of raising funds and awareness. Not only are social media pages free to have, but you can utilize all the extensive features of each platform to reach people that may have never even heard of your organization. The part that many nonprofits and small businesses get hung up on is content creation! It can be time-consuming to create posts each week that resonate with your audience.


If you aren’t ready to hire Achieve to handle your social media presence, we can show you how you can use Canva to make posts that are easy to customize, beautiful to look at, and fun to create.


First, you’ll want to sign up at Canva.com. There is the free version as well as two paid plans. You can learn more about the differences between the versions here. After you get all settled in with their tutorial, you’ll want to start creating your graphics! So click the button in the top right corner to choose the size of your graphic.


*We recommend keeping all of your designs in the square shape, or “Instagram Post” size.*


Next, you’ll want to upload all of your organization’s logos as well as photos and videos you know you will use often. Make sure to take advantage of the “Folders” feature and name your design to keep everything organized.


From this point, your design is up to you! You can view Canva’s pre-made templates and customize them to your nonprofit’s brand guidelines. For example, we’ve taken their fun and abstract post template and changed it to match our look. We swapped the photo, changed the colors of the elements, and used our font and copy. It’s that simple!


We know you want to spend most of your time raising funds and awareness, not on graphic design, so many organizations have a weekly schedule that they follow to be efficient. To do this, create templates for each category of post you think would most resonate with your audience. These categories can relate to the day of the week to simplify your posting schedule even further. For example, “Motivation Monday” or “Fact Friday.”


When you’re ready to download your design, just click the download button and make sure to choose PNG to have the highest quality version for social media!


Canva is one of our favorite resources to recommend to nonprofits because the built-in features like the elements, templates, and more, make it a fast and customizable option that almost anyone on the team can take on. We know how busy the incredible people who work in nonprofit are. We hope this makes saving the world just a little bit easier!

Need some more inspiration? Here are a few of our favorite nonprofit social media accounts:



@charitywater uses customized graphics in their Instagram highlights with their brand colors. These highlights can be easily made with Canva by searching “Instagram Story Highlight Cover” under “Create a Design” and then utilizing their templates to customize them to your organization.



@peggyadamsarl is a great example of re-using templates periodically, with their Pet of the Week post.



@livecivil does an awesome job using their brand colors across their page feed.


About the Author

Sarah LaFemina


The nonprofit industry is exactly where Sarah belongs as she considers her truest passion, helping others. The digital world is ever-expanding and Sarah is always on top of trends, tech, and new ways to reach people.


In her role at Achieve, Sarah is involved in supporting the Marketing Director by creating digital advertisements and campaigns, writing email copy, and assisting our clients in their digital marketing efforts. Sarah holds a BBA in Marketing from Florida Atlantic University and has represented over 35 brands on Social Media in her career thus far.


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