Social media is an indispensable tool for raising awareness for your nonprofit’s cause, reaching new audiences, and strengthening your relationships with donors. After all, with 4.9 billion social media users around the world, there’s a wealth of potential supporters just waiting at your fingertips—all it takes is a coordinated approach and a computer to engage them.

However, your nonprofit isn’t the only one that understands just how valuable social media can be for your fundraising efforts. So how do you stand out from the crowd?

By collecting and analyzing key data points, you’ll be able to continually refine your strategy and stay at the forefront of social media fundraising. In this guide, we’ll walk through three key social media fundraising metrics, as well as how you can improve them:

1. Social Media Engagement Rate
2. Conversion Rate
3. Social Media Return on Investment

Ready to tap into the full potential of social media fundraising? Let your data lead the way.

1. Social Media Engagement Rate

When it comes to securing support on social media, getting your nonprofit’s content in front of prospective donors is only the first step. Whether you’re posting on Facebook, Instagram, or even LinkedIn, it’s important to focus on reaching users who are most likely to take action in response to your content.

This is where your social media engagement rates come in. Every interaction that takes place between a user and your nonprofit’s social media content counts as an engagement. While they’ll differ depending on the platform, some common engagements include:

• Likes
• Comments
• Shares
• Mentions

To calculate your nonprofit’s social media engagement rate, take your total number of engagements on the platform and divide it by the total number of impressions (the number of times your content was displayed to users) your content received. Then, multiply that number by 100. Keeping track of your engagement rate allows you to determine whether you’re effectively communicating and connecting with social media supporters over time.

How to Improve Your Engagement Rate

If your nonprofit’s engagement rate is not as high as you’d like it to be, consider implementing these tried-and-true methods:

• Add more eye-catching visuals to your posts. An attention-grabbing image can encourage a user to pause their scrolling and engage more deeply with your nonprofit’s content. Enhance your messaging by including pictures of your nonprofit’s beneficiaries, snapshots of your volunteers at work, and images captured at your latest event. This helps viewers better understand your daily operations and impact.
• Plan a variety of ways for users to interact. Your nonprofit’s supporters may have a limited capacity to contribute or prefer to get involved in different ways. Therefore, be sure to promote various opportunities for them to make an impact. For instance, you might encourage Facebook users to start a birthday fundraiser on behalf of your nonprofit or simply ask them to share your content with their personal networks.

By paying more attention to which posts and other social media activities garner the most engagement on the platforms, you’ll be able to hone your strategy over time to spark more interest in your nonprofit.

2. Conversion Rate

Once your organization has a bustling community of supporters on social media, how do you channel their enthusiasm into meaningful impact? Your nonprofit’s conversion rate reveals how effective your social media posts are at inspiring users to take the action you’d like them to take.

You might focus on conversions such as:

• Making a gift
• Registering for an event
• Subscribing to your email newsletter
• Signing up to volunteer
• Joining your membership program

Similar to your social media engagement rate, you can calculate your nonprofit’s conversion rate by dividing your total number of conversions by the total number of impressions received, then multiplying by 100.

How to Improve Your Conversion Rate

If your organization is experiencing high engagement, yet low conversions, there are several easy ways you can improve your results. Follow these best practices to boost your conversion rates on social media:

• Include clear calls to action. One basic, yet effective way to motivate more users to take action is by including calls to action in your social media content that outline exactly what steps you’d like supporters to take. For instance, at the bottom of a volunteer spotlight post, you might feature a link to your volunteer registration form and add, “Sign up to volunteer at our next event!”
• Incorporate compelling stories. Stories, such as those featuring a specific beneficiary or volunteer, can bring users closer to your cause and give them a more tangible, urgent reason to get involved.
• Thank supporters often. Build strong relationships with your supporters and keep them invested in your mission by having a thoughtful social media thank-you plan in place. By publicly recognizing donors, you can leverage social proof and encourage more users to get involved as well.

Focusing on your nonprofit’s conversion rates ensures that all of your social media efforts are effectively contributing to your overall fundraising goals.

3. Social Media Return on Investment

Measuring your nonprofit’s return on investment (ROI) is essential for any marketing or fundraising initiative. After all, you want to make sure that you’re using your time and resources in the most efficient way possible.

According to 360MatchPro’s fundraising statistics, 97% of nonprofits regularly use social media to engage their supporters. But with so many platforms to choose from, how do you decide which ones to center your efforts on? By calculating your ROI for each platform, you’ll be able to determine which ones have been most effective for your organization.

To calculate your social media ROI, take the revenue your nonprofit has earned on a platform and divide that number by how much you’ve spent on that platform. Then, multiply that number by 100.

How to Improve Your Return on Investment

Every social media platform has its pros and cons, so the ideal platforms for fundraising will differ from nonprofit to nonprofit. Regardless of the channels your nonprofit chooses, however, there are steps you can take to improve your ROI.

First, learn more about your target audience to naturally get a better idea of which social media platforms they prefer to interact with your nonprofit on. Then, you can consider partnering with influencers or leveraging tools such as social media ads to expand your reach. 

GoodUnited’s social giving guide recommends creating targeted Facebook ads to get your content in front of users with similar characteristics and interests as your existing supporter base. This means that they’re more likely to support your nonprofit upon learning more about its mission.

About the Author

Nick Black

Nick is the Founder and CEO of GoodUnited, a venture backed Software as a Service (SaaS) startup that helps nonprofits like Wounded Warrior Project, American Cancer Society, World Wildlife Fund create 1:1 relationships with their donors through the combination of data science and human judgement delivered in conversational messaging platforms. Nick's work with GoodUnited resulted in being named The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s 2017 Distinguished Young Alumnus. 

Nick has been an innovator and leader at the intersection of business and social impact for over ten years. The concept for GoodUnited came through Nick's work co-founding and leading Stop Soldier Suicide, a 501c3 that grew from startup to national leader in reducing veteran suicide to the national average in ten years. Stop Soldier Suicide’s growth and impact resulted in Nick being selected as a Presidential Leadership Scholar and a Leadership North Carolina Fellow. 



Nick co-founded Stop Soldier Suicide stemming from his experiences leading Paratroopers as a Ranger qualified Army Officer with the 173rd Airborne during 27 months deployed to combat zones in Afghanistan. During Nick's six years of service he was awarded two Bronze Stars, an Army Commendation Medal for Valor and as a Field Artillery Officer, was repeatedly ranked 1st among 50 peer Officers in a premier Infantry Battalion.

Nick received a BA from The Johns Hopkins University. At Johns Hopkins, Nick was a four-year member of the Varsity football team, the first two-time President of Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity and a four-year scholarship winner of the Army ROTC program. Nick received an MBA from Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina. At Kenan-Flagler, Nick was awarded the Rollie Tillman Award for Leadership, selected as a Kenan Institute Leadership Fellow, and was President of the Veterans Club.

Nick lives in Charleston South Carolina with his wife Amanda. Amanda and Nick have a five-year-old daughter and four-year-old son.