News Article

Nonprofit fundraising has embraced new and diverse methods for attracting new donors, especially social media.

According to research by the Society for New Communications Research, the nation's top nonprofits are social media's biggest customers. The report found that 93 percent of nonprofits have a Facebook profile, 83 percent are members of Twitter and 65 percent run a blog.

The study examined the nation's 200 largest charities to consider how the organizations have implemented social media technologies. Overall, 97 percent of charities were found to be using some form of social media.

"The largest U.S. nonprofit organizations continue to outpace businesses and even academic institutions in their familiarity, use, and monitoring activity. These top organizations have found a new and exciting way to engage employees, volunteers and donors," stated Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes, senior fellow and research chair of the society.

Social media requires organizations to stop behaving like units and begin acting more like networks in order to properly leverage social media, Beth Kanter writes for TechSoup.org. People inside and outside need to be engaged in order to improve programs and services.