Social media stats to inform your digital strategy in 2024

According to Non-profit Tech for Good, 87% of charities across the world have a social media presence.

Considering there’s a global audience of over five billion users to tap into, it’s no surprise.

From raising awareness and recruiting volunteers to reaching new donors and raising funds, social media offers charities a plethora of benefits. And, with new features being rolled out all the time, it’s becoming quicker and easier to do it all.

The stats say it all. Social media is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s a must have to succeed in the digital world.

But, to get the most out of it in 2024, you need to focus your fundraising efforts on the right platforms.

If you’re launching a legacy campaign, your efforts will be wasted on millennial TikTok users. Just like a gaming fundraiser will be lost on LinkedIn users.

To help you reach your target market and maximise your social media ROI, we’ve compiled some need-to-know stats and facts for each platform.

Let’s get into it.

Facebook

Number of monthly active users: 3.065 billion
Largest age group: 25-34 (29.9%)
Gender distribution: 43.7% female, 56.3% male 
Time spent per day: 30.9 minutes

Contrary to reports that ‘Facebook is dying’, it’s very much alive and kicking.

The world’s most popular social media platform, it topped three billion monthly active users last year, making it the first social media platform to do so.

18% of donors across the world have given through Facebook Fundraising tools and 88% say they’d give that way again.
The average peer-to-peer fundraising campaign sees 15–18% of donations come through Facebook.
Engagement on the platform increases by 18% on Thursdays and Fridays, making the end of the week a prime time to launch a fundraising campaign.

Instagram

Number of monthly active users: 2 billion
Largest age group: 18-24 (30.8%)
Gender distribution: 48.2% female, 51.8% male 
Time spent per day: 33.1 minutes

Nearly 85% of Instagram’s user base is under the age of 45. If you’re trying to reach Gen X or Boomers, you’re better off focusing your efforts on Facebook.

Time spent on the platform increased from 30.1 minutes in 2022 to 33.1 minutes in 2023, indicating that people are spending more time engaging with Instagram content.

Half a billion people watch Instagram Stories on a daily basis. That’s a lot of potential eyeballs on your video appeals.

X (formerly Twitter)

Number of monthly active users: 368 million
Largest age group: 25-34 (38.5%)
Gender distribution: 37% female, 63% male 
Time spent per day: 34.1 minutes

After rebranding to X, the platform saw a 13% decline in daily active users during the first year. Despite this, people spend much more time on X than Facebook and Instagram.

Across all platforms, X has the most male users, making it the ideal platform for men-centric campaigns. 55% of people who engage with charities on Twitter end up taking some sort of action.

YouTube

Number of monthly active users: 2.491 billion
Largest age group: 25-34 (21.2%)
Gender distribution: 45.6% female, 54.4% male 
Time spent per day: 48.7 minutes

With over 14 billion monthly visits, YouTube is the world’s second-most visited website. What better reason to include it in your digital fundraising strategy?

57% of people who watch charity videos on YouTube go on to donate.

YouTube Shorts (60-second clips) receive 15 billion daily views, demonstrating that viewers are craving short-and-sweet content.

LinkedIn

Number of users: 1 billion
Largest age group: 25-34 (60%)
Gender distribution: 43.7% female, 56.3% male 

69% of users access the platform daily and 15% use it several times a week.

Millennials dominate the platform, and adoption among Gen Z population is growing as they enter the workforce. 

53% of LinkedIn users come from high-income households, making LinkedIn a potential goldmine for major donor fundraising.

TikTok

Number of monthly active users: 1.7 billion
Largest age group: 18-24 (36.2%)
Gender distribution: 49.2% female, 50.8% male (no data on other genders)
Time spent per day: 53.8 minutes

TikTok boasts the highest average time spent per day of any network. Daily time spent on the platform grew by almost 10 minutes compared to the previous year’s 45.8 minutes. That’s a fair amount of time to win potential donors over with your content.

Considering 18–26-year-olds make up the largest chunk of its user base, if you want to engage with Gen Z, TikTok is the place to do it.

The advertising potential of TikTok is huge. According to Hootsuite, ads on the platform reach 18.6% of internet users worldwide. And, when ads are created in conjunction with TikTok creators, reach increases to 26%.

Looking for a fundraiser to supercharge your digital income? We can help. Give us a call on 0203 880 6655 or email us at contactus@ferntalent.com to get started.

New research has revealed that the UK is the world’s second-most miserable country

According to a new report by Sapien Labs, us Brits are some of the unhappiest people on the planet.

The not-for-profit neuroscience research body published its annual Global Mind Project earlier this month. And it revealed that Britain is the second-most unhappy country in the world. 

Never a people to be outdone, eh? 

If you’re wondering how Sapien Labs measured, they asked people across 70 countries to complete an online questionnaire known as the Mental Health Quotient (MHQ), which assessed their overall happiness and resilience in six areas: mood and outlook, social self, drive and motivation, adaptability and resilience, cognition, and mind-body connection.

From that, people were placed on a scale from -100 to 200, with the upper end being ‘very satisfied’.

The UK’s respondents scored a measly average of 49. And we weren’t far off last place: we only scored one more point than Uzbekistan. 

We did, however, come last in the ‘percentage of people struggling mentally’ category, with a whopping 35% of Brits describing themselves as ‘distressed’.

The good news

We may be a miserable bunch, but Action for Happiness is on a mission to turn things around.

In honour of International Day of Happiness, we’re shining a spotlight on the work they do.

Action for Happiness

Action for Happiness is a registered charity and global movement that aims to ’build a happier and more caring society’.

They’re doing it through a series of initiatives:

• 10 Days of Happiness is a free online coaching programme designed to boost wellbeing and happiness through a series of small daily actions.

• Action for Happiness volunteers facilitate regular online groups to help people connect, learn, and spread happiness locally. The 90-minute sessions explore their evidence-based Ten Keys to Happier Living. 

• They host live talks online with leading thinkers on happiness, wellbeing, and mental health. Happiness Habits is a six-week course designed to help attendees craft the skills for a happy life. An independent randomised controlled trial of the course was carried out by academics from Oxford University, London School of Economics, and Imperial College and found that it enhanced well-being, reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression, and increased compassion and social trust.

• Their Keys to Happier Living Toolkit is an engaging, accessible, and evidence-based programme to promote the emotional well-being and resilience of children aged 5-11

• Workplace training: They provide businesses with expert insights to support individual well-being and build a culture of happiness.

• The Action for Happiness app empowers users to improve their happiness and well-being. Each day they receive an action to take at the beginning of the day and an inspiring message at the end of the day. The messages are based on the themes of their popular monthly calendars. Users can also connect and share ideas with other users.

Final Word

If we all take inspiration from Action for Happiness, maybe we’ll have a more prominent position in Global Mind Project’s 2025 league table. Here’s hoping.

Looking for a fundraiser? We can help. Give us a call on 020 3750 3111 or email us at info@bamboofundraising.co.uk to get started.

Funding opportunities March

Grants are a vital source of income for charities large and small, but trawling through databases for relevant opportunities is a time-consuming task.

Enter Bamboo. Each month, we scour the internet and highlight a range of funding opportunities from trusts, corporates, and the public sector.

Let’s get into it.

The Woodroffe Benton Foundation

Amount: £500 to £2,500
Deadline: March 31

The Foundation’s current funding programme focuses on projects which improve the quality of life and social engagement for older people in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.

They will consider applications under the following categories:

• Relief of people in need, hardship, or distress because of social or economic circumstances.

• Provision/Maintenance of care and accommodation for the sick and elderly.

• Promotion of education (within the Derbyshire region)

• Environmental Conservation/Preservation/Protection/Improvement (particularly where it would encourage the provision of access by members of the public)

They prefer to contribute to core operating costs rather than specific projects. So organisations with an annual income of £750,000 or more will not qualify for funding.

Find out more and apply here.

Impetus Connect Fund

Amount: £100k for two years
Deadline: April 7

The Impetus Connect Fund partners with charities that support young people from ethnic minorities and socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds into employment.

They’re particularly interested in working with organisations that serve young people from Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Black communities, as these groups face the most significant barriers to employment.

To qualify, your charity must:

• deliver a programme/intervention that targets employment or employment-related outcomes for the young people i.e., supporting young people to develop employment-related or sector-specific skills (e.g. interview practice or skills boot camps), connecting young people with work experience or apprenticeship opportunities, or provide mentoring for young people

• have achieved at least break-even in two of the past three years, OR you must hold at least two months of operating costs in your reserves

• have at least five members of staff

If successful, you’ll receive:

• £100k in unrestricted grant funding per year, for two years (with the potential to continue thereafter)

• Expertise, coaching, and capacity-building support from their investment team

• Access to their peer learning forums, a chance to network with and learn from other portfolio charities

• Access to sector-based coalitions to influence policy and the national conversation on the issues faced by the young people you serve

• Access to their pro-bono network of specialist advisers including PwC and Bain

• Access to further grants through co-investment with their network of donors
  
  Click here to find out more and apply

B&Q Foundation

Amount: £10,000 for indoor projects and £5,000 for garden projects
Deadline: The next funding opens on 26th Apr and closes on 17th May

The B&Q Foundation funds charities that support people in need in the UK – whether they’re homeless, in financial hardship, or impacted by health, disability, or other disadvantage.

The funding should be used to improve or develop spaces that benefit these groups and the local community. Projects can be indoor or outdoor.
You can see previous projects they’ve funded here.

If successful, your project must be delivered within 6 months of receiving the grant.

Find out more and apply here.

John Ellerman Foundation

Amount: £10,000 - £50,000 per year, for up to three years
Deadline: Rolling

The John Ellerman Foundation aims to advance the well-being of people, society, and the natural world by focusing on the arts, environment, and social action. They prefer to support smaller charities, so organisations with an annual income in excess of £750,000 aren’t eligible to apply.

They provide core funding, which can be used for:

• staff salaries, training, and expenses

• day-to-day running costs and operations

• monitoring and evaluation

• communications and digital innovation.

They have three funding programmes.

1.   Arts

They fund organisations which collaborate with, commission or support artists to create new or reimagined work and prioritise applicants from outside the capital.

Applications can be made under two programmes: Creators in the performing arts, and Curators in museums and galleries.

2.   Environment

They’re interested in organisations that understand the interdependence of people and nature and apply this in their thinking and practice.

Applications can be made under two programmes: The Ocean and Land and fresh waters.

3.   Social Action

They are interested in organisations with a track record of tackling divisions and inequity, and who bring together individuals, community organisations, and others, including national bodies, to influence government and the agencies that shape our lives.

To qualify, your organisation must:

• Actively involve those with personal experience of the issue tackled

• Improve systems through policy, advocacy, and campaigning

• have been operating for more than 24 months

Find out more here.

Looking for a trust fundraiser to join your team? We can help. Give us a call on 020 3750 3111 or email us at info@bamboofundraising.co.uk to get started.

Local authority funding cuts are putting charities at risk

Local government is in crisis. Since 2018, eight English councils have declared themselves bankrupt, including four in the past 12 months. And, according to the Guardian, nearly one in five council leaders in England say they’re likely to declare bankruptcy in the next 15 months. 

While local authorities have faced financial difficulties for the last decade, the issues have been exacerbated by the same inflationary pressures that are pushing the cost of living up for everyone.

To stay afloat, they’ve been forced to make drastic spending cuts, including vital funding to local charities.

Considering council funding makes up 13% of the sector’s income, it’s a huge blow.

Financial pressure

Charity think tank Pro Bono Economics says that local authority funding for charities has fallen by 23% since 2010, equating to £13.2bn. And further cuts can be expected in the coming months.

Cause for concern

The financial challenges in local government pose a threat to the future of many local charities.

For instance:

• The Early Help Service in Birmingham has warned that thousands of children are at risk as a result of proposals by the bankrupt city council to cut an £8m early help contract, providing safety net services to thousands of families struggling with poverty, mental illness, and addiction.

• Community First bus services linking communities in rural Hampshire are under threat after Hampshire County Council, which faces a £132m deficit over the next two years, cut funding by £500,000. It’s also scrapped a £500,000 grant that funds volunteer and legal support for 650 local charities.

• Citizens Advice Woking faces closure after bankrupt Woking borough council cancelled its £180,000 grant.

Speaking out

In an interview with the Guardian, Dame Clare Moriarty, chief executive of Citizens Advice said of the financial crisis, “local government has been a crucial funder for charities like Citizens Advice, so the current crisis is deeply troubling. We’ll continue working to make sure we can be there for as many people as possible. But it’s vital the government considers the devastating knock-on impacts of local authority funding cuts on community services.”

Government response

In January, the government announced a £600m boost for English councils, most of which has been earmarked for social care services, but the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee has warned the extra cash won’t tackle the underlying financial problems.

Comprising of a cross-party group of MPs, the Committee has called on ministers to urgently inject £4bn into English town hall budgets to head off an “out of control” financial crisis that threatens to drag well-run councils into bankruptcy and put more local services at risk.

Clive Betts, chair of the Committee, said “the government must use the local government financial settlement to help bridge the £4bn funding gap for 2024-25 or risk already strained council services becoming stretched to breaking point. If the government fails to plug this gap, well-run councils could face the very real prospect of effectively going bust.”

Looking for a fundraiser to help you diversify your income? We can help. Give us a call on 0203 750 3111 or email info@bamboofundraising.co.uk.

When celebrity partnerships go wrong

Celebrity ambassadors can be a huge coup for charities.

The right partnership can supercharge brand awareness, engagement, and income. 

A prime example? Stephen Fry and MIND. The actor, broadcaster, and comedian took over from Lord Melvyn Bragg as the President of Mind in 2011. And he’s been a tireless campaigner, supporter, and advocate for the mental health charity ever since.

His involvement has helped raise the profile of the charity and transform public attitudes towards mental health.

However, not all celebrity partnerships have happy endings.

When celebrity partnerships go wrong

In 2023, three high-profile celebrity ambassadors were dropped by charities after becoming embroiled in scandals.

In March, BBC Question Time presenter Fiona Bruce was asked to step down from her role as ambassador for domestic violence charity Refuge, following claims she trivialised domestic violence during a discussion about Boris Johnson’s father Stanley.

In May, The Prince’s Trust dropped Philip Schofield as ambassador after he admitted to an affair with a younger male colleague during his tenure at This Morning.

Then in September, several charities cut ties with comedian Russell Brand, following a string of rape, sexual assault, and emotional abuse allegations.

Collateral damage

As these examples show, celebrity ambassadorships bring with them a level of risk.

Once a celebrity comes on board, their name and reputation are linked to your charity. If they act out of sync with your ethos, engage in damaging behaviour, or get caught up in a scandal, your brand could get caught in the crossfire.

At best it could result in negative publicity. At worst, you could lose donors and suffer long-term reputational damage.

What to do when crisis strikes

If the worst happens, your first job is to call the celebrity’s publicist/agent and establish what happened (if you drop your ambassador based on a false report in the Daily Mirror, you’ll look silly).

However, if the story turns out to be true, you need to acknowledge it – fast.

Organisations are often afraid to make a public statement for fear of saying the wrong thing. But if you wait too long to respond, donors will question your integrity.

Take control of the narrative by firing out a statement acknowledging the scandal, expressing concern, and making your relationship with the celebrity clear.

When crafting your response, stick to the facts. Sharing your opinion or criticising the celebrity won’t do you any favours.

Follow the example of women’s charity, Trevi.

In response to the Russell Brand scandal, they posted the following statement on Instagram:

“Russell became aware of our charity in 2022 after hearing about some of the incredible mothers we have helped to become drug-free over the years. He wanted to support our cause and raise money through his Stay Free Foundation. Today's media revelations have been difficult to process but our priority remains and continues to be the safety and well-being of all women and girls now and in the future. We have ended our association with Russell Brand.”

Call in an expert

If in doubt, your best bet is to consult with an expert crisis management agency like Do Good PR. A PR agency for charities, and social enterprises, they ‘provide affordable comms support to help charities and purpose-led organisations achieve their goals.’

Prevention is better than cure

The best way to prevent a PR crisis is to carry out a thorough vetting process at the start of the ambassadorship.

Research the celebrity's history, (both professionally and personally). Are they associated with anything that could damage your brand? Are there any conflicts of interest? Do they court controversy? Have they been in trouble with the law?

Taking the time to assess potential risks can prevent PR headaches down the line.

Looking for a PR-savvy fundraiser to manage your celebrity ambassadors? We can help. Give us a call on 020 3750 3111 or email us at info@bamboofundraising.co.uk to get the conversation started.