Our mission at GoodUnited is to empower nonprofits to make every fundraiser and donor feel appreciated. We do that by using a combination of data science and human judgement to create meaningful Messenger experiences, allowing nonprofits to connect where their fundraisers and donors spend time - social media.

We’re incredibly proud that since we launched our direct fundraising solution, our nonprofit partners have raised over $500,000,000 from Facebook fundraisers.

But what often gets lost in the numbers, are the people. Their stories, and their connection to the cause, is why this all matters.

Every day, hundreds of fundraisers and donors share their stories with our nonprofit partners through Messenger. These stories are filled with emotion. Everything from immense gratitude to sorrow to celebration.

It's clear that for these fundraisers, Facebook fundraising is so much more than just raising money. It's about supporting a cause that they deeply care about.  Often, these fundraisers will also ask how they can stay involved once the fundraiser ends.

We added these fundraiser stories to the GoodUnited dashboard so that nonprofits can experience, firsthand, the impact their organization is having on their Facebook fundraisers.

Here’s what to expect today and going forward:

Today:

When you log into your dashboard you’ll find a Fundraiser Mission Stories chart. Take a minute to read through your stories and appreciate the people behind the numbers.

If you’d like to respond, you can click “Reply” and respond directly in Messenger using Facebook Inbox. Just copy the name from the chart and paste it into the search box in Facebook Inbox.

It’s important to note that while an overwhelming majority of stories are positive, some may be critical. If we find that there’s a pattern of feedback on the frequency or types of messages, we’ll discuss an optimization plan to improve the experience for all your fundraisers and donors during the monthly meetings.

Tips on How to Take Action:

• Set up a process to review these stories several times throughout the month
• If your fundraisers ask questions or ask for ways to stay involved, respond directly in Messenger
• Download all your fundraiser stories from your Fundraiser report. Work with your marketing team to come up with a strategy to highlight some of these stories throughout multiple channels (on your website, on Facebook, in e-mails)

What’s Next

At GoodUnited, we believe that the most important data we collect are these stories. In order to make these stories actionable, at scale, our data science team is hard at work turning these “stories” or unstructured data (as they like to call it) into insights or structured data.

Over the coming months we’re going to shift the focus of the dashboard to the individuals behind your fundraisers. We’re testing word clouds, and other ways to separate the signal from the noise within your stories.

All of this data science work is leading to the ultimate goal of yearlong cultivation to drive repeat action.

Questions and Feedback

Please send any questions or feedback to your customer success manager. They’ll be happy to set aside time to work through strategies for using these fundraiser stories across your organization.

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