Can social media be a game-changer for non-profits?

By Sajit Joseph 

Executive Director, American Red  Cross

There are more than 1.19 billion Facebook users1 (an increase of 18% year over year). According to Stanford, 47% people learnt about causes using social and online channels.  Non-profit Twitter followers increased by 264% in a year3. Social media could be a game changer for non-profits.

Non-profits have a lot of barriers to overcome and changes to be implemented before they can begin to harness the true power of social media.

My analysis of the top U.S. non-profits found that most charities had a good social media penetration and engagement. They also have a satisfactory web experience. But the overall experience is disjointed. The web and social media experience are being run in silos. To make matters worse, many of them have individual chapters/regions, which have their own web sites and social media presence adding to the confusion, causing a very disconnected user experience.

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