Funding

Survey: More Educators Are Using Social Media for Fundraising

• By Christopher Piehler
• 05/04/15

According to the results of the sixth annual CASE/Huron/mStoner Social Media Survey, more schools, colleges and universities worldwide are using social media to boost their fundraising results, and are experimenting with new strategies. 

Some 57 percent of respondents reported using social media to fundraise in 2015, compared to 47 percent in 2014. Meanwhile, 59 percent reported experimenting with new social media fundraising strategies.

Other key findings include the following:

• Educational institutions are using less text and more images and video in their social media communications. Use of text decreased from 65 percent in 2012 to 43 percent in 2015, while image use grew from 30 percent in 2012 to 45 percent in 2015. Video use increased from 6 percent in 2012 to 12 percent in 2015.
• While nearly 60 percent of respondents use social media to raise money from donors, nearly 85 percent indicated that social-media-based fundraising represents 5 percent or less of their institution's total.
• 15 percent of institutions have held crowdfunding campaigns. Of these, 50 percent earned more than $10,000 per year.
• 22 percent of institutions use social media ambassadors — often alumni — who are recruited to help promote social media initiatives.
• 26 percent of respondents rate their use of social media as “very successful” or “a model for success.”
• Respondents are focusing their attention on Facebook, Twitter and institutional websites that aggregate social media.
• 34 percent of respondents calculate engagement scores for alumni and donors, and indicate that they are focused on building tech-based methods of measuring engagement.

The sixth annual CASE/Huron Education/mStoner Social Media Survey was conducted from February 19 through March 26, 2015. Nearly 1,000 respondents provided feedback.