Charity streams are one of the most fun ways to give back to the community as a streamer. Last time, we discussed how to pick a charity to work with. But now that we’ve found one, how can we fundraise as effectively as possible with our audience? Today, we’re going to look at some widely successful tactics that we can use to increase the revenue for our charity of choice. We’ll be discussing publicizing techniques, goal setting and incentives, and perfecting the “inform and ask.” Let’s take a look at how mastering these three items can maximize your fundraising impact.
The biggest task ahead of a charity stream is spreading the word as far and wide as possible. There are a couple of important things to consider here. The first is that you need to spread the word with a reasonable amount of advanced notice, at least 2 weeks in advance of the stream. There are two reasons for this. One, you want to give them time to plan to attend, and two, you want to give them a chance to save a little money to donate to the cause! Not everyone has extra money just lying around, so a little heads up can go a long way there.
You also want to make sure, especially if you are a smaller streamer, that you spread your publicity net as far as possible, much farther than your normal stream promotion. Sure, it’s important to communicate with your community, but you should also be asking them to share it with their friends. Talk about it with your work friends, school friends, strangers at the grocery store, whomever you can get to listen to you. If possible, have some mini flyers on hand with the stream info and a donation link, so people can remember to tune in and donate! Another great tactic here is partnering with other content creators, and involving their communities to help drive donations. Remember, the more people in your donation pool, the bigger the impact you can make!
So, you’ve got them at your stream. The next trick is getting them to actually donate. One big way to get people to spend money is to set goals, and incentivize those goals with stretch goals and incentives. Goals are fantastic for charity streams, because it provides a target for a community to work towards. It sets the level of success, and chances are, your community wants you to be successful. We’ve found it’s best to set ambitious, yet attainable goals. In the best case scenario, be willing to adjust your goals up if your community hits the initial goal quicker than expected. Also, after each charity stream you do, evaluate your goals, and decide if you need to adjust them for the next stream.
Here’s the deal. People ultimately come to streams to be entertained. So how can we make raising money entertaining? By using stretch goals and incentives. Come up with a bunch of entertaining activities that your audience would enjoy watching. You can even ask your community for ideas. From there, divide them into two categories: high-effort and low-effort. High-effort items often make great stretch goals. For example, say, if your donation total hits $1000, you’ll do a segment in a horror game. These are often big moments for your stream, so it tends to highly motivate your audience.
Take your low-effort items and add them in as incentives. There’s a few ways you can do this. Some people like to set individual donation amounts for each item, while others prefer to make a flat rate, and then add an element of chance (for example, roll a die or spin a wheel) every time a user makes a donation of at least a certain dollar amount. Also in this category, if the game you are playing has opportunities to mess with the game, include incentives for that as well.
The final, and probably most influential point in this list is the “inform and ask”. The idea here is that we want to a) tell the viewers why this charity is worth their time, and ask for their donations. This is your opportunity to play with your viewers’ heartstrings, and tell them why their donations are so important, exactly what their donations go towards, what would happen without this funding, and why this cause is personally important to you. Get emotional here, and try to invoke emotion in your audience. And once you have your audience ready, ask them to donate. Make it a personal request. Make it from your heart. The more sincere you can be here, the more likely they are to donate, and the bigger the impact will be on your charity.
The charities we’re helping are near and dear to our hearts, and naturally, we want to help them as much as possible. In this article, we’ve explored how to maximize our charitable revenue by using our publicizing techniques, goal setting and incentives, and perfecting the “inform and ask.” What techniques have worked for you in the past? Let us know over in the #charity-stream-tips channel on our discord! Not already a member? Grab the links to our communities at NerdsBelongHere.com! And as always, stay tuned to this blog for more great tips and tricks!