Facebook is one of the largest online social networks. Many people spend hours visiting friends’ profiles, adding applications, and browsing photos. Now many organizations from bands to ministries are using Facebook to profile themselves. Facebook offers many features to promote your specific group.
One of the applications many organizations are adding is called “Causes.” Causes allows your organization to set up a Facebook page to feature information about your ministry and allow people to donate to the cause. Beth Kanter, a well known proponent for nonprofits using social media, writes about this in her blog. You can read her full article here. Donations can be small or large, but the importance is that your organization is being highlighted. Your Facebook friends can invite their friends to join the Cause. With Facebook’s viral nature- news spreading quickly- you can easily reach hundreds of people.
iDonate.com recently set up a Cause page called “Help Create Revolutionary Generosity.” Simply by sending out invitations to friends to join the Cause, 80 people had joined in two days. Just two days and without any more promotion than an invitation sent out from a Cause page! There is a lot of power there.
Facebook offers many more tools. You can set up a group to inform your friends of the current happenings of your ministry, post pictures, weblinks, and video there as well. You also can leave the group open so that your friends can invite their friends to join as well. You can set up an individual profile for yourself and use the features- photos, notes, status updates, and applications- to keep your friends informed of your work in the ministry.
By setting up a Cause page or a Fan page, friends can post comments and you can message all the members of your Cause. For instance, this is Facebook’s page- http://www.facebook.com/facebook They have greatly utilized this page to keep users informed of latest happenings, offer fun tips, post notes, links to blogs, and allow people to give feedback—all an easy format you can follow. The Causes application has close to 15 million active users, a wonderful resource for you to tap into to begin to promote your organization.
Facebook is very navigable. Set up a page and begin promoting your ministry. If you still need help, view other pages that are set up and get ideas there.
-- Jessica High is a Research Assistant at Christian Foundation Grants (www.christianfoundationgrants.com) which is a subscription database of foundations that provide grants to faith based organizations. iDonate.com is a website (www.iDonate.com) that allows ministries to receive non cash gifts online.