How to build a winning social media strategy for your nonprofit

Managing your nonprofit’s social media strategy while juggling its various fundraising, volunteer, and stewardship programs can feel overwhelming. Fortunately, success doesn’t require a big team or budget—just a smart plan.

This guide will help you create a social media strategy tailored to your nonprofit. From setting goals and understanding your audience to crafting engaging content and measuring success, you’ll learn how to leverage social media as a powerful tool for building community and driving donor support.

Start with a plan: The foundation of your social media success

Jumping into social media without a plan is like building a house without a blueprint. A strategy gives direction, saves time, and ensures every post has a purpose.

Define your goals

Before creating a single post, know what you want to achieve. Your social media goals should directly support your nonprofit’s overall mission, whether that’s finding new donors, recruiting volunteers, or raising awareness.

The more specific you are, the better. Instead of a vague goal, like “more engagement,” try something specific, like “increase comments and shares by 20% this quarter.” Concrete goals make it easier to measure what works.

Here are a few common themes:

• Increase brand awareness: Introduce your organization and its mission to a wider audience.
• Foster community: Create a space for your supporters to connect with you and each other.
• Drive website traffic: Send people to your website to learn more, sign up for your newsletter, or make a donation.
• Boost donations: Use social media to spotlight your fundraising campaigns.
• Recruit volunteers: Find dedicated people to help you carry out your work.

Identify your audience

To connect with your audience, you first need to know who they are. Think about the people you want to reach: what their interests are, where they spend time online, and what they value.

Creating detailed audience personas is a great way to understand their motivations and tailor your content to match.

For a deeper dive, check out our guide to creating donor personas.

Choose the right platforms

You don’t need to be on every social media platform. In fact, trying to do too much is a quick way to create fatigue. The key is to choose the platforms where your target audience is most active.

Here’s a quick overview of the major platforms and how they can serve nonprofits:

• Facebook: A versatile platform for community-building, sharing updates, and promoting events to a wide audience
• Instagram: Ideal destination for compelling photos and short videos to tell your story and connect with a younger demographic
• X (formerly Twitter): Ideal for real-time updates and joining conversations with media or corporate partners
• LinkedIn: The go-to platform for networking with professionals, connecting with corporate sponsors, and recruiting board members
• TikTok: Best for enabling organizations to raise awareness and engaging a younger audience in creative, fast-paced formats
• YouTube: Best for long-form video content, like documentary-style stories, educational explainers, and event recordings

Start with one or two platforms and excel with them before expanding. It’s better to do an excellent job on a couple of channels than a mediocre job on five.

Create content that connects and converts

With your goals, audience, and platforms defined, it’s time to think about what you’ll post. Your social media content is how you bring your mission to life. It should be authentic, engaging, and aligned with your brand voice.

Establish a powerful content planner

A social media content planner is one of the most powerful tools in your toolkit. It’s a calendar where you schedule all your posts in advance. This simple tool can transform your social media workflow, saving you time and reducing stress.

Here’s why you need a content planner:

• It ensures consistency: A planner helps you post regularly, which is essential for keeping your audience engaged and staying relevant in their feeds.
• It saves time: Instead of scrambling for content each day, you can batch-create your posts in one or two sessions per week. This frees you up to focus on other tasks.
• It improves content quality: Planning ahead gives you the space to be more strategic and creative with your posts. You can align your content with campaigns, holidays, and awareness days.
• It facilitates collaboration: If you have a team, a shared content planner keeps everyone on the same page.

Your planner can be a simple spreadsheet, a Google Calendar, or a dedicated social media scheduling tool. The format doesn’t matter as much as using it consistently.

If you’re unsure where to start or need some inspiration, our sample weekly planner can help guide you in the right direction.

Embrace the 4 pillars of nonprofit content

A balanced content strategy includes a mix of fundraising tactics and post types. This keeps your feed interesting and provides value to your followers. A good model to follow is the “four pillars” of content:

1. Educate: Share information that teaches your audience something new and valuable. This could be statistics about your cause, explanations about the problem you solve, or tips related to your mission.
2. Inspire: Tell stories that create an emotional connection. Share testimonials from people you’ve helped, highlight the work of your volunteers, or post behind-the-scenes glimpses of your team in action.
3. Entertain: Share fun facts, create a lighthearted poll, or post a feel-good photo. Entertaining content can increase your reach and make your brand more relatable.
4. Promote: Ask your audience to take action. Promote your fundraising campaigns, ask for volunteers, or invite people to an event.

A good rule of thumb is the 80/20 rule: 80% of your content should educate, inspire, or entertain, whereas only 20% should directly promote.

Leverage practical tips for creating great content

• Use high-quality visuals: Remember, posts with images or videos get significantly more engagement. You don’t need a professional photographer. Most of the time, a modern smartphone will do.
• Write compelling captions: Use your caption to tell a story and encourage interaction. Ask questions, share a surprising fact, and include a clear call to action.
• Tell human stories: Feature the faces and voices of your community—your staff, volunteers, donors, and the people you serve. People connect with people, not abstract concepts.
• Keep it simple: Use clear and accessible language. Avoid jargon or overly technical terms. Your content should be easy for anyone to understand.

Engage with your community

Social media isn’t a megaphone. It’s a two-way conversation. Building a strong community requires you to listen and engage equally as much as you post.

Be responsive

When someone comments on your post or sends you a direct message, respond as quickly as you can. This shows that you listen and that you value their input. A simple “thank you,” or an answer to a question can go a long way in relationship-building.

Encourage user-generated content

User-generated content is any content—photos, videos, reviews—created by your followers. It’s a powerful form of social proof.

Encourage your supporters to share their stories related to your mission. You could run a photo contest or create a unique hashtag that people can use when they post about your organization.

Just remember to always ask for permission before re-sharing someone’s content on your official channels.

Join relevant conversations

Use social media to listen to what people say about your cause and your organization.

Set up alerts for keywords related to your mission. When you find a relevant conversation, join in respectfully. Offer your expertise, answer questions, and share resources. This helps establish your organization as a leader in its field.

Measure your results and adapt your strategy

A social media strategy is not a “set it and forget it” document. It’s a living plan that should evolve as you learn what works. Regularly measuring your performance is the only way to know if your efforts pay off.

Track key metrics

Most social media platforms have built-in analytics tools that provide a wealth of data. It’s easy to get lost in the numbers, so focus on the metrics tied to your goals.

• Reach and impressions: These metrics tell you how many people see your content. They are crucial for tracking brand awareness.
• Engagement rate: This is the percentage of people who interact with your post—like, comment, share—after seeing it. It’s a key indicator of how well your content resonates.
• Website clicks: This metric tells you how many people click the links in your posts. It’s essential if your goal is to drive traffic to your nonprofit website.
• Donations: This metric tracks how many donations come directly from your social channels. You can use UTM codes to track clicks from specific campaigns. It’s a key indicator if you use social media for fundraising.

Review and refine

Set aside time each month to review your analytics.

Some questions to ask yourself are:

• What were our most popular posts?
• What time of day did we get the most engagement?
• Which platforms drive the most traffic?

Use these insights to refine your strategy. If you notice that videos perform well, plan to create more of them. If a certain type of post consistently falls flat, it might be time to retire it. This process of continuous improvement is what will make your social media strategy effective over the long term.

Refining your strategy for long-term success

Social media is a powerful tool for building relationships, sharing your mission, and driving real-world action. By creating a thoughtful strategy, you can turn your social channels into a thriving hub for your community of supporters.

It takes time and consistent effort, but the return—in awareness, engagement, and support—is well worth it.