GreatPositive

(BONUS: Your followers can also opt-in to receiving notifications every time you post on your nonprofit’s Facebook page. They just need to check off “All On” for Notifications under the same section.)

This 2-step instruction is the easy part. The hard part Is getting communications together and actually getting your followers to go through with the process. I recommend making this part of your regular communications as a best practice, just as you would inform people to add your nonprofit’s email into their address book to ensure that it doesn’t go into Spam. Try and make it a routine every time you get new followers or schedule periodic posts on your social media calendar.

A good first step would be a simple post that includes instructions and an image:

Beverly is the Associate Director of Resource Development at Youth Speaks. Prior to joining the Youth Speaks team, she served as the Director of Individual Giving atPerforming Arts Workshop and as an AmeriCorps VISTA at Streetside Stories. She sits on the board of directors of the Association of Fundraising Professionals – Golden Gate Chapter and chairs the Marketing Committee. Beverly took almost every international relations and Middle East politics class at UCLA before receiving her B.A. in Political Science and History. A Bay Area native, you can usually find her at the gym, in a kitchen, or at the Oakland Coliseum’s left-field bleachers.

Narrow down the choices to what you’re most comfortable using.

Go where your supporters are.

Twitter and Facebook are common choices to start. However, if you have manily visual content to share, consider Instagram and Snapchat first.

Utilize Scheduling Tools

Spend one hour at the beginning of the week to schedule all posts for the week, then mix it up with real-time posting throughout the week. Below are two popular options:

Hootsuite The free plan allows you to manage up to 3 social profiles, where you can schedule posts in advance, get basic reporting and monitor conversations around keywords and hashtags.

Buffer The free plan allows you to manage Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn. They also take the cake on scheduling posts, including images and video, but they lack social listening.

Check out this blog post that compares the cost and effectiveness of Hootsuite and Buffer.

Twitter Tips to Gain & Engage Followers

New to Twitter? Check out these Twitter basics and FAQs.

Hashtags help you discover people.

People are likely to follow you if they are added to your list.

Be creative with your list names and make people feel special if the list is public.

Use an IFTTT recipe to automatically add up to 5000 people to each of your lists. IFTTT stands for “if this then that” and it’s a service that helps you automate actions for the everyday apps and products that you use.

Reply to those who engage with you (mentions you, retweets one of your tweets or favorites one of your tweets).

Mention others in your tweets.

Retweet relevant tweets.

Reply to relevant tweets.

Facebook Tips to Gain & Engage Followers

New to Facebook Pages? View Facebook’s tutorial and learn how to set up a Page.

Invite your supporters, family, friends and colleagues to “Like” your page.

Try to post trending content because Facebook’s News Feed algorithm is based highly on timely trending content. This usually includes holidays, special events and breaking news.

You can always see what is trending on the right sidebar of your news feed.

Instagram Tips to Gain & Engage Followers

New to Instagram? View Instagram’s page on getting started.

Use relevant and popular hashtags in your photo description to gain more exposure for your photo.

Be creative with your images and test out what works with your audience. Images could be of events, people, quotes, objects, food — you name it.

Videos and flipagrams are also highly engaging.

LinkedIn Tips for Your Personal Account

I’m a big fan of personal branding and leveraging yourself as a marketing vehicle for your nonprofit. New to LinkedIn? Learn the basics of using LinkedIn.

Complete your profile as much as you can, with at least a welcoming profile picture, a summary section, a list of your experience and education and recommendations from people you’ve worked with. This is your personal brand and can help bring credibility to your nonprofit. View my LinkedIn profile as an example.

Your summary section should highlight your expertise, your intentions and a clear ask. People are more willing to engage if you clearly list contact information and why he/she should reach out to you.

Post status updates daily and share relevant articles, industry updates and information on your nonprofit.

Snapchat Tips to Engage Your Supporters & Audience

Snapchat is still the most foreign territory for nonprofits, but with 100 million active daily users and a platform loved by tweens and teens, you at least want to start familiarizing yourself with the platform. New to Snapchat? Learn the basics of using Snapchat.

Download the app and claim your nonprofit’s username.

Gain new followers by promoting your nonprofit’s custom snapcode across other social networks, email and on your website. You may have seen people post a snapcode as their Twitter or Facebook profile pictures (it’s the white ghost in a yellow box customized with a logo or photo within the white ghost).

Post snaps (pictures and videos) that can only be viewed for 10 seconds. Snaps are meant to be spontaneous and fun. For instance, send spontaneous snaps to your volunteers with a thank-you note.

Post stories that comprise of snaps within a 24 hour time period. This could be a compilation of events or people you encounter throughout the day.

Not ready to dive in? At least claim your nonprofit’s username and start observing how other nonprofits are taking advantage of Snapchat.

Posting Frequency

There are varying viewpoints on how often you should post, which means you should do your own testing. Generally, the following posting schedule can be effective:

Facebook: 1-2x per day

Twitter: 5x per day, but not more than 1 per hour

LinkedIn: 1x per day, ideally in the AM

Instagram: 1-2x per day

Snapchat: Post only when you have engaging content. It’s okay to miss a few days.

Create Visual Content

Create visual marketing and social media content to draw traffic to your website by leveraging Canva’s free tools; it’s a great platform that helps you create images for your website, newsletters, social media posts and more. The best part about it is that you don’t need to be a designer to use Canva—they make it easy for everyone.

Canva offers templates that are sized optimally for different content pieces so that you don’t have to worry about keeping up.

They also provide text and image suggestions in case you get stuck on coming up with your own designs. For more variety, it only costs $1 per template.

Expand Your Audience

Reach a wider audience through blogging. I’ve listed some popular free blogging tools below, but I would recommend using a combination of these blogs because it helps you reach a wider audience. Simply repost your blog on different platforms and reference that the original came from your website’s blog page.

WordPress—If you already have a WordPress site, creating a WordPress blog makes the most logical sense. It’s free and included in the many available WordPress themes out there.

Medium—Medium is discoverable by other Medium users, especially within your Facebook or Twitter network. They also have a great interface that allows people to highlight specific sections and make a comment or share via social media. It’s a clean and beautiful platform.

LinkedIn—LinkedIn’s publishing tool is powerful; especially if you’ve built a robust network of connections. Every time you publish a blog, all of your connections are notified and if they engage with it, their other connections will also be exposed to your blog. With over 396 million members, it’s not a platform to ignore.

Tumblr—Tumblr is popular among the younger audience and works well with shorter posts that are more image heavy. Users can easily like and share your content to the Tumblr population, which is estimated at 300 million users.

Share Others’ Content

Don’t share content that is only about you. Aggregate content that might be relevant to your audience by using tools such as Feedly or Flipboard, and then schedule the articles to be shared on your social networks using scheduling tools, such as Buffer or Hootsuite.

Feedly—Allows you to subscribe to feeds from different news sources and offers team-collaboration tools.

Flipboard—Allows you to choose topics you care about and presents you with relevant news, blogs, articles and social media posts.

Buffer—The free plan allows you to manage Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn. They also take the cake on scheduling posts, including images and video, but they lack social listening.

Hootsuite—The free plan allows you to manage up to 3 social profiles, where you can schedule posts in advance, get basic reporting and monitor conversations around keywords and hashtags.

Use Editing Tools

Use these helpful blog editing tools to write more compelling content.

Headline Analyzer—A free tool that analyzes your headline and provides you with a score, as compared to other titles within the same category or industry you are targeting.

(example of the Headline Analyzer's score for this blog's title)

Hemingway App—A free tool that dissects your content and highlights content that may be too long or complex. It also highlights words that could be replaced with shorter words or stronger verbs.

Create Engaging Presentations

Create engaging presentations and post them on Slideshare. In an effort to not reinvent the wheel, check out this great blog to learn more, “How to Use Slideshare to Attract 450k Views of Your Content.”

With the help of all these tools, you can create a myriad of content, showcasing your knowledge and expertise, doing event recaps, highlighting donation and volunteer impact, summarizing research and reports and involving guest bloggers from your board, volunteers and staff. For further reading, a popular rule of thumb within the nonprofit sector involves the “Three A’s”—Appreciation, Advocacy and Appeals.

Plus, always remember to repurpose your content. One blog piece can turn into 10 different ways to reach your audience by extracting little tidbits and highlighting them across your different social platforms.

Best for Community honorees earned high scores on metrics that include charitable giving, diversity and inclusion, worker ownership, and employee engagement.

Best for Environment honorees earned high scores on metrics that include recycling and waste reduction, energy and water usage, and positive environmental impact through products and services.

Overall, it was just so invigorating to be in a room full of other business owners and leaders who share the same values that we have . View the full list of finalists and honorees that participated in the Best for NYC challenge and help support these local businesses in your community!

And a big thank you to NYCEDC and B Lab for leading this initiative and movement, and for Richard Coraine, Chief Development Officer of the Union Square Hospitality Group, for taking out the time to be the keynote speaker for this event.

A few key takeaways that stuck with me from all the speeches include:

We manage what we measure, which is why it's important that businesses make a commitment to measuring their social and environmental impact.

As leaders and entrepreneurs, we're often taught to think outside of the box, but we shouldn't forget to also think about what's inside the box. We need to be mindful of how we are treating our employees and community.

We all have one common thing uniting us - we're all essential. We all impact peoples lives.

Winning this award is all just the beginning for GreatPositive. Our deep rooted passion to make our community a better place has steered us in the right direction, but we still have a long way to go in terms of being "best for the world." We will continue to use B Lab's impact assessment as a benchmark to ensure that we "meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, legal accountability, and use the power of markets to solve social and environmental problems." And we encourage all businesses to take this challenge and join us in this movement!

About GreatPositive

GreatPositive is on a mission to fix the broken industry of online fundraising for nonprofits. Every year, nonprofits lose out on billions of dollars because current fundraising platforms either gouge in fees or are status quo when it comes to meeting nonprofit needs. Currently, only the top 10% of the 2 million nonprofits in the U.S. are able to afford high quality platforms that are continuously innovating for nonprofit needs. The rest of the 90% have been left behind.

In our first phase, we are simply making it more cost-effective and transparent to raise funds online through our peer-to-peer fundraising platform, our donation tool and event ticketing platform. Without sacrificing quality and innovation, we take a stance against taking a cut from donations and instead work off a fixed fee model that all nonprofits can afford and donors can understand. Here's a calculator that compares how much more money reaches nonprofits when using GreatPositive versus other common platforms.

If any of this resonates with you, we welcome a conversation to see how we can work together!

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To most tweeters out there, twitter chats are still a novel idea and experience, which is why we’ve decided to put together this quick rundown on how to participate in a Twitter Chat.

Every time you have something to tweet, you should include the hashtag “#GreatPositiveChat” within your tweet to allow people to follow the conversation easier. Typically, the hashtag goes at the end of your tweet.

We usually go through about 4-5 questions related to the topic in the span of an hour. The special guest host of the day and participants are encouraged to chime in, provide their answers and ask any follow up questions.

Each question will start with ‘Q1′, ‘Q2′, ‘Q3′, ‘Q4′, ‘Q5′. For example: “Q1: When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? #greatpositivechat” “Q2: What is your favorite food to cook? #greatpositivechat”

And if you decide to comment on a question, you start your tweet with A1, A2, A3, A4,  or A5, so that we know which question you're referring to. For example: “A1: I wanted to be an astronaut and a fashion designer #greatpositivechat” “A2: I love to make fresh pasta and dumplings by hand #greatpositivechat”

We recommend using free services such as tchat.io or tweetchat.com, which essentially gives you a live chat room experience, instead of following the discussion on Twitter.

Mark your calendars!

Carol kicked off the panel by getting a better understanding of their backgrounds and how they discovered the causes they are are now involved in.

How did you discover the cause that you wanted to pursue?

Diandra Kalish

Quick background

Diandra is the founder of Untabooed, a small startup nonprofit dedicated to bringing reusable feminine hygiene products and menstruation education to low income and homeless girls and women. They are currently focusing their efforts in New York, with goals of spreading across the U.S.

The discovery

Diandra’s passion is rooted in her love of education and teaching, combined with her desire for a greener world. She was a user of reusable feminine hygiene products before starting Untabooed and in her research she read some stories about homeless women and the struggles they face because no one donates pads and tampons, and that’s when it hit her!

“People often donate food and clothing, but have you ever thought to donate pads or tampons?”

And even if we all donated pads and tampons, it’s just not a sustainable solution. So this is where Untabooed comes in. Reusable products will last between five and ten years. Think about the impact that one donation per woman can make. For five to ten years, she can save money on period products and not have to worry about where her next tampon or pad will come from.

Rachelle Ocampo

Quick background

Rachelle is the Associate Director of Health Education for Charles B. Wang Community Health Center. Charles B. Wang Health Center focuses on delivering health education and full service health centers to Asian Americans in the New York City area.

The discovery

Rachelle’s moment happened when she was in college studying to become a Physician’s Assistant and received an email saying that she was accepted to do an interview for a PA program. However, instead of accepting the interview, she called her mom and bravely told her that she didn't want to be a PA anymore!

“Have you ever had to choose between something you’ve invested tons of time in and something instead that you knew felt right?”

For Rachelle, she chose public service and health. She knew that’s where she needed to be and that’s where she felt most fulfilled.

Courtney Carey

Quick background

Courtney is the Founder and Artistic Director of Courtney’s Stars of Tomorrow, which is a performing arts organization that helps to promote and present classical music to people who want to get out there and perform in front of others.

The discovery

Courtney is a baritone and works for the Metropolitan Opera Guild as a teaching artist and wanted to use his own passion, experiences and knowledge to form an organization that he felt would really get to the core of some fundamental problems in society -- the lack of music education.

“Kids don’t have an opportunity to play and sing and dance and have a good time in school anymore.”

So he got his hands in the matter and decided that he would not only promote and present classical music, but that he would also form an education program designed to get into public schools to give kids an opportunity to play and sing and dance and have a good time which they don't get to do anymore.

Willard Barth

Quick background

Willard is a Board Member of Latinos NYC, which is dedicated to enriching lives by providing food, clothing, books, toys and financial assistance and can often be found on the ground at community centers and parks. Willard even pointed out the fact that he doesn’t have a drop of Latin blood in him, but was drawn to the dedication and kindness of the organization and the diverse group of people that Latinos NYC actually serves.

The discovery

26 years ago, Willard was mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, financially destroyed because of decisions and choices that he made. He had to rebuild his life from the ground up and was grateful for the help of people who didn't ask anything in return. It was through that experience that he learned the only way to grow was through helping other people.

“How many people have seen volunteers just kind of disappear because things just come up?”

It was about 4-5 years ago, when Willard was asked by some friends to come help at a feeding program in Tompkins Square Park because they were short of volunteers due to the holiday season. It was there that he met the founder of Latinos NYC, one of five people who showed up to feed 200 people and they connected on so many levels. And the rest is history.

For some, you’ll already know the cause you want to be involved with based on your passions, and for others, you might randomly stumble upon it based on people you meet and experiences you have. Keep an open mind and just explore. You’ll know when it’s right and it’s never too late to get involved.

After getting to know the panelists a little better, Carol jumped right into the main topic of the panel.

We hear it so often, “My life’s so hectic. I have a busy schedule. How do I possibly fit volunteering into my busy life? What are my options?”

Rachelle

Don’t underestimate the power of sharing on social media and word of mouth.

Most organizations are open to your help and won’t say no to any type of capacity you can offer.

Organizations like New York Cares offers many different projects across different causes and with different time commitments. So whether you’re available a few hours next week or once a month, you can find something that fits your schedule.

Courtney

Find your passion, find the thing that resonates with you, and go there. The thing that you love to do will be the thing that you will actually do, that’s your starting point.

It’s not always about being physically there doing some hard manual labor, the digital things are a tremendous help as well.

Diandra

Commit to putting an hour aside instead of watching Netflix and you will be amazed at the time that you do have.

Take advantage of the many remote volunteer opportunities out there.

Just do a little bit here and there and they’ll end up being more impactful than you imagined.

Willard

Immerse yourself in your level of commitment. Don’t “try,” just “do.” Follow through because that’s the first thing people need to do.

You've got to identify your why. Why is it important to you? Because when you're clear on your why, you’ll find a way to make it happen.

At the end of the day, it can be as simple as a share of a post, an hour of your time or doing what you love, such as playing a sport with others in need. And if you can align giving with your passions, that’s where you’ll see yourself making long-lasting impact.

The way Willard ended with the last question was a perfect segway into the next question.

We all have good intentions, but sometimes life hits us and we don't follow through. Why do you think this happens, and in your role, how do you encourage or motivate your staff, your peers, and your volunteers?

Willard

Find out what it is that drives them and why they're involved because what’s important to you about the cause or the project may not be what connects with them. If you’re pushing and preaching the wrong reasons, then you're missing the mark on motivation.

Don’t forget to take the time out to positively reinforce and acknowledge the people working with you. Remember that they are taking time away from their family, their projects and their other priorities to come and help. Sometimes it’s easy to overlook the people that come out to help because we're so caught up in getting the mission done.

It’s about holding yourself to higher standard and you’re the only one who can do that. And when you do, you then lead by example.

Rachelle

A big reason people come out to events and are motivated to volunteer is free food! Make sure you have good food, snacks and drinks.

Encourage people to ask their friends to join because people tend to commit to volunteering when they come out together.

Make sure they feel ownership of the mission and that they're making a difference in the cause.

The main thing that community leaders and organizers should keep in mind is to make sure that they invest in relationship building and professional development.

Courtney

It’s always important to keep things fresh by constantly revamping and redesigning different events.

Understand what gets people going and incorporate that.

Motivation is about understanding your audience and that will always vary from person to person, but don’t overthink it! It can be as simple as providing food or showing appreciation. Which leads into our next question:

How have volunteer opportunities evolved to fit the millennial skill set and their interests?

Diandra

A good way to rebrand volunteering is to let your volunteers tell you what they could bring to the table. Allow them to take ownership over what they want to contribute and be excited about their impact.

Offer a flexible volunteer schedule. Of course there are some assignments or projects that would be under time constraints, but there could be other opportunities to do work on their own schedule, such as 11pm at night.

Rachelle

A common misconception to getting millennials involved is by getting them to take over social media or anything computer-related, but they can offer so much more. Millennials are also community organizers, workshop facilitators and leaders!

It’s also our responsibility as the younger generation to be more proactive in getting our peers to participate. A small and great example is to get involved through crowdfunding.

It’s difficult for nonprofits to figure it out all on their own and communications should be a  two-way street. The only way nonprofits can improve is if we all communicate our needs and expectations.

The last question of the night was definitely not the least. We asked all the panelists to tell us a story about a rewarding volunteer experience that made all their efforts worth it.

Willard

“There are so many! I’ve been doing the volunteering thing for many many years in different capacities. One of the first organizations that I was part of running was an organization called The Seventh Tower, it was based out of Jersey and one of our big events was at Thanksgiving. We would gather food and put together what we called the basket brigade. We put together baskets of food and deliver them to less fortunate families and the story is not my own. It’s actually a story of a very dear friend who went to this house in New Jersey and knocked at the door and delivered food anonymously -- it was just like a friend wanted you to have this. We don't know anything other than that they just asked us to deliver it. He knocked on the door and the parents who answered the door were not the most happy about it.

You know people sometimes don't want to receive the charity that’s being given to them because of pride or any other case it might be. But their three young children that were in the apartment -- when they saw him and they saw the food they came running to him and hugging him and wrapped their arms around him and this guy was taller than me. I'm 6"2, he was probably around 6"5, tall, lanky guy. They just gave him the biggest hug in the world and could not let go of his leg as he was trying to leave going down the hallway. The part of the story to remember is the impact that you're making on the little ones because the little ones are going to carry it forward. You know the parents may not appreciate it, the parents may be in an entitlement state of mind, but for the little kids somebody cares.”

Courtney

“I actually sent a text message just a few minutes ago and I asked someone to come downstairs and I'm hoping that he gets the message because this is very important.

So this is a volunteer story that made a huge difference for Courtney’s Stars of Tomorrow. Upstairs with me was my colleague Rodari Simpson who most of you saw, and last January we put together a concert to celebrate the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. This concert was to feature the 2009 Kennedy Center Honorary Grace Bumbry who was a very famous opera singer and she was the first African American to sing at the Bayreuth Opera House in Germany. That was a huge deal because this was once Adolf Hitler’s Opera House and she was the first African American to sing there so I invited her to come to this concert and the concert actually fell completely apart.

So not all the work that we do as nonprofits turn out to be great successes. However, your volunteers can impact and influence how you recover from a downfall and this particular gentleman decided that he would help Courtney’s Stars of Tomorrow succeed. Ever since this particular day that I'm speaking off, when I got the news that the concert would not take place, Rodari has raised for Courtney’s Stars of Tomorrow about $2,000.

One guy with a purpose decided that he was going to help Courtney’s Stars of Tomorrow and I think I just saw his shoe come down that stairwell, Rodari hurry up. So now everybody knows who you are and so Rodari has been a tremendous help to Courtney’s Stars of Tomorrow and one person -I mean this sounds very cliché - but one person really can make a huge difference and in my case the founder of an organization got very let down and was really about to give it all up because why continue on it? My little work didn't seem like it was making a tremendous impact or big enough impact in my mind, but he said keep going and that’s exactly what I've done and so we've been on a good firm footing ever since then, so thank you very much my friend.”

Rachelle

“One of the most rewarding experiences for me that made it all worth it was when I was offered to go to the Philippines on an all expense paid trip and it included like the flight, the food and the stay and I also was able to meet all this business leaders, including the president of the Philippines, it was insane.

The Philippines embassy was the one that picks 10 Filipino mega leaders across the nation and I was one of them three years ago so when I saw my name on that website, one of the top 10 I felt like "Wow, all these hours in Google spreadsheets, all these meetings and hours on the phone, all these events that I organized" they all led to this moment of my name being on that website, but of course I didn't do all these to get a free trip to the Philippines.

I didn't know where I was going to end up after doing all these years of nonprofit work, I did it because I felt like I needed to give back so the main point of the story is I feel like it’s important to recognize leaders, recognize your staff for all their hard work, make sure that they feel appreciated.

I know somebody said it earlier that you need to let your staff feel appreciated for all the work and time they’re taking out and help them be recognized. Let all these beautiful souls be recognized and known.  There are so many beautiful souls that are out there that could be here representing their organizations. So I'm really blessed again to be here and I know that all of you have your own story and I can't wait to hear from you all”

Diandra

“I have a similar but opposite story to Willard’s. One of the organizations that we partner with is Win NYC. Win is a group of shelters that houses families that they work with. Originally, they only served women in need, but now it’s really about getting families back on their feet. Our partnership with them includes working with their teenage girls, which is really great because sometimes I'm the first person to ever teach them about their periods!

I am that person, and actually during the first workshop I did with them, I was in a room with about 8 or 9 girls and there was a woman there who was a mother to one of the girls. This mother said, "Actually my daughter is too young but I wanted her to come and learn" and out of everyone in that workshop, the biggest impact was made on that mother. I would say she was probably in her 30s and she came up to me afterwards and she was like you've totally changed my understanding of my body, I didn't know how it worked. You've changed really what I think about this natural process and you've helped me understand that all of these advertisements for certain things like feminine body watch products are really just sucking me dry of money and they aren't what I should be focusing my money and my energy on. You've totally changed my viewpoint on all that.

I think I was about six months in and I was like, "Okay, I've helped one person" and I think I can help more than that. I made this huge impact on a person by just by being in a room for about an hour. That was a really memorable experience.”

The night ended on such a high note after hearing those moving stories. We hope you were motivated and inspired as much as the live audience was!

Follow The Promise Society on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stay up to date on future charitable and volunteer events.

2. How are you involved and what impact do you hope to make?

I am the founder and current President of the Kota Alliance, which is an alliance of NGO’s working for women’s empowerment and gender equality, globally or locally. This includes organizations working for women’s health, education, financial independence, political participation, peace and the environment, etc.

“there are so many ways women can make a difference if they have access.”

We are trying to increase the efficiency and impact of these organizations’s collaboration, resource sharing and cost savings. The best way to do this is to have a building in New York City with co-working space, conference and event space, and lodging for visitors. We have a small rented space now but are working on getting a bigger center established. The impact will be through the work of our member organizations.

3. What request do you have for our readers?

Pass the word along if you know of small, startup or even medium size organizations that fit the bill! Ask them to apply for Kota organizational membership. And of course, we always need donations – and by giving to Kota you actually give to many at once!

Donate to The Kota Alliance on GreatPositive.