The Making of a £1m Charity
overview //
GIFT is a charity that focuses on the culture of giving in the UK Jewish community. They co-ordinate a range of services for those in need and encourage volunteering through community partnerships and informal educational activities.
Our task was to create an emotional connection between GIFT and its audience to help raise vital donations to help them continue to expand their work. We are proud to have played a role in helping to get their message out into the world.
Our social media strategy helped to turn GIFT into a £1m charity within 12 months.
// content
The content we created and curated focused on spotlighting real-life stories to show the difference that donations can make. We focused on showing the work that GIFT was doing in all the parts of the community the operate in.
While increasing any client’s following on social media is important, we wanted to focus on driving up engagement. We treated engagement as a way of staying connected with those who are interested in the charity’s work.
Our first target was to drive Facebook & Instagram engagement up to just above charity average. Within twelve months, both Facebook & Instagram had triple the engagement rate that they previously had.
Our second achievement was to increase the reactions/likes per post on Facebook & Instagram. We were successfully able to double Facebook reactions per post, while on Instagram we increased likes 3x+.
An engaged, but small, audience can often be more effective for fundraising than a larger but unengaged audience.
// impact
By increasing engagement on GIFT’s social media posts, we were able to show that their community was continuously interested in their activities. There were two main ways we were able to do this. First was by making sure that we posted on a consistent schedule and second was that we made sure that the content was of a high quality. A high quality post for GIFT isn’t only about resolution and aspect ratio, it’s about showing the community as an engaged partner in GIFT’s vision. Images and videos of volunteers and young people in the community is the best content for GIFT.
Our final goal was to increase the follower count on GIFT’s Instagram. Using all the techniques and strategies outlined above we have been able to almost triple their following.
// conclusions
8original’s work with GIFT culminated with the annual ‘Giving Together’ fundraiser, with a focus on their work during COVID-19.
GIFT raised the original £500k target to £750k before they smashed the £1m mark.
By making sure that the social media strategy was aligned with the charity’s values & ambitions, we were able to be part of the process of GIFT becoming a £1m charity.
We are very excited to see what 2021 can bring for GIFT!
