How charities can use digital to fundraise in a disaster situation 'as it happens'

Disasters and climate emergencies present a uniquely constrained fundraising environment for charities. When an unforeseen catastrophe happens, non-profit organisations working either as disaster relief or in the affected communities have a very short window of time to the raise money needed, and to communicate the urgency and need of the situation to donors.

That’s where ingenuity and being creative with digital can really make a difference. Charities working in other areas can learn a few things from the ability of disaster response organisations to make compelling fundraising campaigns that are immediate and impactful, and get funds to people as quickly as possible through new, innovative payment methods.

Social media fundraising

There’s some evidence that, thanks to climate change, weather is becoming more extreme in the UK, with frequent storms and heavy rainfall becoming the norm. So there’s a likelihood that many more charities working in local communities will have to help people affected by storms and flooding.

When RNLI’s lifeboat was caught in extremely choppy waters while rescuing someone at sea during storm Ciara this February, a bystander captured dramatic footage of the boat capsizing while in action. The video really brought home the savagery of the storm and the crew’s bravery and skill, with all involved returning safely to shore.

The great thing about social media is that it allows charities to respond to a situation as it’s happening, and RNLI responded quickly by creating a Facebook post with the video including a Facebook Donate button so that people could donate directly from the page. As a result, the charity raised over £26,845 towards storm rescue efforts, from a single post.

“We think it’s down to a combination of extraordinary footage (such an incident is very rare – none of our current design of all-weather boat have capsized and this is the first knockdown on a Shannon – and it happened to be caught on camera) and timeliness, as we were able to get the post out over the weekend when Storm Ciara was trending and people were spending more time on social media because of the bad weather.”

 

RNLI Social Media Manager - Rich Ward