by Rachel Ayotte | Aug 14, 2024 | Article
Busy grantmakers—swamped with competing priorities—often don’t have time to think about an online community or understand the importance of having one.
But in truth, online communities can be incredibly beneficial to grantmakers and the organisations they support. When done well, an online community can provide an opportunity for grantmakers to connect, engage and collaborate with stakeholders throughout the industry, including other funding organisations and grantees themselves.
Though creating an online community can take work and effort, along with a bit of strategy, having one can be hugely advantageous for grantmakers, for a few reasons.
Online communities can help:
Spread awareness and generate support: Robust online communities can help spread the word about the work you do. For grantmakers, this is key—more awareness about your mission means more advocates for your cause, funding dollars and support for your mission and possibly even more applications in your next grant cycle.
Enhance collaboration: Successful grantmaking hinges on a grantmakers ability to make the grant process—from pre-award to post-award—collaborative and equitable. When done well, online communities can create a space for improving funder-grantee relationships by offering transparency through real-time interaction, feedback and direct communication of funding priorities, application processes and decision-making criteria.
Facilitate knowledge exchange: With the right facilitation, grantmakers can use online communities to garner firsthand knowledge about the challenges nonprofits face as well as emerging social-impact trends through interacting with grantees or other funders. All of which, of course, can help grantmakers make their approaches more responsive.
Before we jump into how to build an online community, first, be sure to understand your goals for creating an online space.
Additionally, you’ll want to understand what audiences you’d like to target and where they congregate online, which you might be able to understand through a community needs assessment. Then, you’ll want to assemble a team to help you create, update, and maintain these channels, too.
Once you’ve laid this foundation, it’s time to start building your online community.
One of the best ways to create an online community is to use platforms that are specifically made for real-time communication, like Slack, Discord, or Facebook groups.
With a few moderators, these channels can serve as a direct communication line between you, other grantmakers and potential applicants who have questions, concerns, or even feedback.
Most nonprofit experts know that taking advantage of social media is essential to creating an Internet community. When it comes to nonprofits, in fact, 29% of online donors say that social media is the communication tool that most inspires them to give, and 55% of people who engage with nonprofits on social media end up taking some sort of action.
Once you’ve identified which social media channels are most suitable for your organisation—depending on your goals and audience—you’ll want to follow a few best practices to enhance your online community:
Create a content calendar: When using social media, you’ll want to post content pretty consistently. To do this, create a calendar full of posts that encourage interaction (Q+As, event invites, etc.).
Actively engage with followers: Posting on social media isn’t enough to build a thriving online community. Be sure to respond to comments and messages consistently.
Collaborate with influencers and partners: Identify micro-influencers or other organisations that align with your mission. With their help, engage in cross-promotion for maximum reach.
Leverage in peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns: Peer-to-peer fundraising is a strategic way to spread the word. Either host your own on social media or partake in another organisation’s event to better your mission awareness.
There are an estimated 3.5 billion searches on Google each day and many of the results from those searches point to blogs. With the right strategy, your foundation can attract completely new applicants or other supporters, providing a simple and straightforward way to educate them about your mission.
When starting a blog, aim to use keywords relevant to your organisation and consider what applicants, other grantmaking foundations or supporters might be searching for and how you can answer their queries.
Another great way to bring members into your internet community is by taking advantage of existing channels, like Quora or Reddit. These popular forums provide a great opportunity for grantmaking foundations ot answer questions related to their cause or mission, connect with supporters and even provide some clarity on the grantmaking process.
Social media isn’t the only place where grantmakers can partake in cross-collaboration.
In fact, plenty of nonprofits and grantmaking organisations team up with similar organisations to host virtual events, podcasts, webinars, or AMAs (Ask Me Anything sessions).
According to research, 98% of searchers click a result on the first page of Google, and compared to other platforms, search ads (like Google Ads) have the highest ROI for nonprofits.
That’s why Google Ad Grants, a program from Google that offers eligible nonprofit organisations up to $10,000 per month in free advertising, is so important. Grantmaking organisations can take advantage of this huge opportunity to bring more supporters right to their site.
Whether your organisation is on Facebook, collaborating on webinars, or applying for Google Ad grants, creating an online community is a great way to connect, collaborate and engage with stakeholders near and far—and ultimately help you create more impact.
Articles
Feature focus
Ebooks
Videos
Releases