3 Proven Ways to Use LinkedIn to Amplify Your Nonprofit Outreach
If you fundraise for a nonprofit, you may be feeling the pressure right now. According to a 2023 LinkedIn survey of over 5,000 global nonprofit professionals, respondents would like to see their number of donors increase by 39% on average. But those who want to see an increase aren’t optimistic, with almost six out of 10 (59%) saying it will be difficult to achieve.
Faced with these challenges, many nonprofits are getting creative with their online fundraising, including exploring new ways to make the most of LinkedIn. Here are three virtual fundraising ideas that some nonprofits have found effective on LinkedIn.
1. Use content to regularly engage your stakeholders
Using your organization’s online presence to foster an engaged community of supporters can be an effective way to make your nonprofit outreach more successful in the long term.
This is one of the keys to succeeding at fundraising marketing on LinkedIn. By building out a compelling LinkedIn Page and posting high-quality content on a regular basis, you increase the chances that potential donors will already be familiar with your organization when you reach out. If they’re not, there’s a strong likelihood that they’ll click through to your nonprofit’s LinkedIn Page to learn more before deciding whether or not to respond, so it’s important to show them something good.
Start by ensuring your nonprofit’s LinkedIn Page is complete and up to date. Next, connect with the person or team responsible for posting content for your nonprofit to see if there are opportunities to weave fundraising-centric posts into their content calendar.
This can include the occasional direct call to action, but it can also involve more indirect fundraising content, like impact stories. Organizations that post at least weekly see a 2x lift in engagement with their content, so working collectively to keep your nonprofit’s LinkedIn Page active can be a powerful strategy for engaging potential donors. Plus, this gives your fundraising team a wealth of great content to share with prospects when reaching out.
If you use LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you’ll be able to see at a glance if a prospect you’re targeting follows your nonprofit’s LinkedIn Page. This is also a filter you can apply when running searches. Knowing this can help you prioritize your outreach and determine how familiar a prospect is likely to be with your organization, which may inform your approach.
2. Connect with champions at target donor organizations
Since LinkedIn is a professional network, it can be a valuable platform for forging lasting relationships with corporate donors.
Many nonprofits use LinkedIn to research key decision makers at their target organizations, empowering them to customize their outreach more strategically. Some, like Hope for Haiti, also use the advanced search capabilities of LinkedIn Sales Navigator to identify people who could champion their cause internally.
“In a larger company, the ask as an ambassador is so much easier when it’s coming from within,” Taylor Hebble, Chief Development Officer at Hope for Haiti, told LinkedIn for Nonprofits. “So connecting with people that you think are aligned with the cause and then giving that employee the tools to take it to the next level — that’s been huge.”
To spot outreach opportunities with potential champions, look for people who work at your target organization and have some connection to your cause. This could include volunteering at a similar organization in the past or being part of a relevant LinkedIn Group. If these individuals are passionate about the kind of work that your nonprofit is doing, they may be willing to make a critical introduction for you that leads to a long-term partnership.
If this approach doesn’t generate any promising leads, you could also try to identify people that you share something in common with, such as fellow alumni of your school. Even small points of connection like this can make your outreach stand out, making you more likely to receive a response.
3. Create more informed, personalized outreach messages with AI tools
Whether you’re reaching out to a prospective donor, champion, or decision maker, getting the first message right is essential. In the past, this would often involve hours of research across many different websites and platforms. But with new AI-assisted tools, fundraisers can streamline time-consuming tasks and create more space for the most human parts of their job, like having conversations.
If you use LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you can now use Account IQ to generate an executive summary of a company you’re targeting. This summary pulls in information from public sources and layers it with LinkedIn’s unique insights to help fundraisers and sales professionals understand an organization’s strategic priorities, pain points, key people, and more — saving you hours of internet sleuthing.
Leveraging this information can help you craft more compelling and personalized outreach messages at scale, especially if combined with an AI assistant like Microsoft Copilot to help create the first draft. From there, you can review the message for accuracy and add that all-important personal touch before hitting send.
Nonprofits are already seeing success using AI to customize their outreach to potential job candidates, with one organization calling these tools “incredible and time-saving,” so it’s worth exploring whether AI can help supercharge your fundraising. If your team isn’t sure where to get started with this technology, check out these free LinkedIn Learning paths on Generative AI to help you find your footing.
Nonprofit outreach can be challenging, especially in a tough economic climate. To learn more about how LinkedIn Sales Navigator can help, and to find out if your nonprofit is eligible for a discount, get in touch with our team.
