Return on Investment

ROI is often used to help organizations decide where they should devote their time and resources, and what they might expect in return. Social media fundraising, and even social media in general, are often criticized as having low ROI.  We disagree! There are two ways to look at it:

Short Term ROI – Money and Time

If you spent $200 in Facebook Ads this month and got $1,000 in donations from it, that’s an ROI of 500%.  Not bad!  If you spent 6 hours setting up those ads, and you are paid $50 per hour by your organization, then the ROI is more like 200% ($200 + (6 X $50) = $500).

At HelpAttack! we seek to maximize the effectiveness and ROI of your campaigns by handling most of the supporter stewardship, individual emails, donation processing, and followup for you. People still like to get a personal note or shout out on social media, don’t forget.

So what should you expect, short term? We consistently deliver between $0.50 and $1.00 per unique visitor in donations, and that doesn’t even take into account additional Likes, Follows, and supporter information you collect.  So, to break even with a $50 per hour staff person spending 6 hours on a campaign, you’d need to drive between 300 and 600 unique visitors to a HelpAttack! page or widget.

Long Term ROI

Were you around when your organization started building an email list? Were there discussions about when, and how, to start using that list to ask for donations? Social media is no different.  The sooner your organization starts developing skill and resources in social media fundraising, the more those investments will pay off long term.  We think you should look at HelpAttack! as a savings account.  The more you put in, and the longer you stick with it, the greater your returns.