Charities. Choices. Social media.

Charity marketing used to be pretty straight forward. In a nice palatable way you would raise awareness of the issue, crisis, disaster, whatever it was. And then go straight for the – donate now. Straight for the wallet. Rattle a tin in high foot fall places, phone in a donation, text a fiver and so on.

That used to work – the awareness bit – when there weren’t many charities prepared or savvy enough to spend to get donations.

You’d get the stand out and some people would take “the action” and donate. They’d feel good about taking that action. It was the only action they could take to make them feel good. Make a donation. Or may be volunteer.

Simple.

Then it got a bit more complicated as more charities understood that they needed to fight for their share of voice. Palatable wouldn’t get you stand out so we move to “shock” to spark the donation.

Remember the NSPCC FULL STOP campaign? That wasn’t tea time viewing by any stretch of the imagination.

But the route to donation and feeling good about your self was still clear. Feel moved. Donate.

Then social media comes along.

And every one, including charities wanted to be on social media. Why wouldn’t they? The stats are compelling. Billions of users, massive dwell time, huge reach. The opportunity to engage with people who could donate and help is overwhelming. And added to that, it’s pretty cheap which is going to please the FD.

So we start running social media campaigns.

The problem is, the BIG problem is, you’ve just just created an intersection in the donation journey. Sorry that sounds really cheesy.

Feel moved. Donate. Or like. Or share.

By liking or sharing people are showing that they care. But no money changes hands. Sharers and Likers are unlikely to donate because they are getting the same “feel good” factor but without actually contributing. What’s more – their friends see how philanthropic they are. But they haven’t actually done ANYTHING to help the cause.

So the message right now for charities, when donations are dropping year on year and our tolerance to good causes is at an all time low – is if you want donations – make that the only way people can feel good about engaging with your charity.

Other wise you’re going to end up with a very active and engaged Facebook page or a great Klout score on Twitter – but no actual money coming in. So stop allowing people to contribute with a like and make sure they contribute with a donation. That’s pretty straightforward.