When UK-based charity Childs i Foundation needed to raise funds urgently this year to fly Joey, a Ugandan baby, to South Africa for a life-saving operation, founder Lucy Buck turned to the internet for help. Within 38 hours, the charity had raised more than £10,000 via social networking and online giving websites – enabling the child to make the trip with his family for the vital surgery.

The growth in social media usage in the UK has been explosive in recent years, and is expected to continue. This poses significant challenges for fundraisers, as they grapple with how best to incorporate these communication platforms into the fundraising mix and how to engage new user groups.

But there is a huge opportunity for charity fundraisers. Facebook has about 400m users worldwide, up from 100m just two years ago. According to consultancy Clicky Media, the UK has nearly 28m Facebook users – almost half the population. Meanwhile, nearly 4m use Twitter, which has reached 50m tweets a day worldwide. After Facebook, YouTube is the most-visited social networking site, accounting for 17% of all visits in the UK.

International disaster relief charities have used social media to raise funds for their emergency work in countries such as Haiti. But even small organisations can translate the same techniques for their own local causes.

Howard Lake, director of internet fundraising consultancy Fundraising UK, says that when it comes to raising money through social media, many charities have been beaten to it by individual supporters. What charities need to do, he says, is identify those supporters who are actively promoting or fundraising for the charity on Facebook, YouTube and other networking sites.

"Charities need to harness the skills of these activists and support them by putting resources into these new media," says Lake. This could mean providing supporters with tools, content and other features such as video or sample tweets that can be used to raise the charity's profile or support particular campaigns.

Dogs Trust has used social media for one-off fundraising, such as doing a 24-hour "big ask" on Facebook or using Twibbon, which promotes causes on Facebook and Twitter, for its Valentine appeal. Laurier Nicas, digital marketing officer at the charity says: "These media are useful in helping us support individuals raising money for us, so we tweet for them if they're running a marathon for us, for example."

But Nicas agrees charities should be wary of relying on social media to raise money: "We use social media more as a customer service tool and if fundraising emerges out of that, it's a bonus."

There is no denying though that these new channels do have the ability to reach large numbers of people very quickly and – if a cause is compelling enough – to raise money. Childs i Foundation's Buck says: "We got a call from Joey's parents and in 40 minutes a campaign was up and running." She posted a video and launched an appeal on online donations website JustGiving, as well as using a Facebook fan page. This kind of appeal is not just about raising money, says Buck, but also about making deeper connections with people across the world and showing them what the charity is doing.

To keep on top of new developments, Howard Lake recommends face-to-face contact with other fundraisers using social media, via events such as those hosted by NFPtweetup, a website of Twitter users in the non-profit sector. "You can also contact other charities and chat with them about their experience of using these media," says Lake.

This year the Institute of Fundraising has introduced "webinars" for fundraisers in blogging content and effective Facebook fan pages (the next is on 14 December). AJ Leon, CEO of event partner LaC Project, says fundraisers who learn, understand and employ emerging technologies now "will be those leading the digital revolution in the third sector for years to come".

Links

Donordigital.com

Fundraising.org.uk

Dogstrust.org.uk

Childsifoundation.org

Nfptweetup.org