Level up your social media fundraising with TikTok’s Charity Academy

According to the latest Charity Digital Skills Report, 4 out of 5 charities lack social media skills, and 79% say improving their digital presence is a key priority for 2024.

Are your digital skills up to scratch? If not, sign up for TikTok’s Charity Academy.

Touted as the platform’s ‘biggest charity sector training initiative to date’, the short-form video hosting service has partnered with Media Trust to offer 100 charities three weeks of complementary training to help them use the platform to reach new audiences and drive positive change.

That’s right. the training is free. No dancing or random pointing is required.

Before we dive into what the Academy offers, let’s look at the benefits of TikTok for charities.

• TikTok has just over 1.5 billion monthly active users. That’s a lot of potential eyeballs on your cause.

• With an average engagement rate of 2.65%, TikTok has the highest engagement rate of all the social media platforms.

• Research has shown that people retain 95% of the information contained in a video compared to 10% of the same information in text format. TikTok is video-led format, making it an ideal way to share your message.

• You can put a 'donate sticker' on your videos and live streams to encourage viewers to donate. And they can do so while remaining in the app.

• A large majority of TikTokers are between the ages of 18 - 34 (the demographic most likely to give to charity, according to Third Sector)

What’s the Academy offering?

That’s a quick primer on TikTok. But how will you benefit from joining the Academy?

First off, Media Trust will be host weekly live, practical training sessions every Tuesday and Thursday (10-11.30 am) between July 1-19.

In addition to content creation strategies, engagement techniques, and best practice advice for maximising your presence on the app, the sessions will teach you how to:

• optimise your TikTok profile 

• identify your target audience

• create a successful TikTok strategy 

• use platform features such as LIVE, TikTok sounds, filters, duets and stitch 

• edit content with CapCut

• reach new audiences with digital storytelling

• utilise analytics 

• integrate TikTok into your wider digital comms strategy

You’ll also get:

• access to pre-training support, helping you set up your TikTok account.

• expert led TikTok exercises and content activities to embed your learning.

• personalised feedback on the content you create from trainers who know how to use TikTok as a tool for social good.  

Sound good?

If you meet the following criteria, apply here.

• are you a registered charity in the UK?

• do you have buy-in from senior management to be active on TikTok?

• Does your charity have resources to implement the training?

As places are limited, TikTok is offering one place per charity. And to get the most from the training, they require the same participant to attend all the sessions.

Looking for a digital fundraiser to supercharge your TikTok activity? We can help. Give us a call on 0203 750 3111 or email info@bamboofundraising.co.uk to get the ball rolling.

Funding Opportunities: May

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.

Comic Relief

Amount:  Up to £200,000
Deadline: May 7, 2024

Comic Relief’s ‘Safe & Supported Beyond Homelessness’ fund aims to support charities that help young people who are at risk of or experiencing homelessness to access the support they need.

Funding Priorities

They’ll provide core funding to organisations that:

• Specialise in the provision of holistic support to people aged 16-25 in the UK, who are at immediate risk of, or experiencing homelessness. Support services should be tailored, inclusive and accessible, to meet the multiple and diverse needs of beneficiaries.

• Involve young people with lived experience of homelessness, or who have been at risk of homelessness, in the development of their work or the running of the organisation.

• Although not an essential requirement, they’re interested in hearing from organisations that work to change public attitudes towards youth homelessness and/or reduce the stigma and discrimination that young people face.

Find out more and apply here.

Peter Harrison Foundation

Amount: Between £5,000 - £30,000
Deadline: July 1, 2024

Under its ‘opportunities through sport and physical activity’ programme, the Foundation funds charities that enable people in the UK who are physically, mentally, socially, or economically disadvantaged to partake in sport and physical activity.

Applications for capital, revenue or project funding will be considered.

The Trustees will prioritise physical activity initiatives that:

• Focus on skills development and confidence building.

• Have a strong training and/or educational theme.

• Provide specialised sporting equipment or facilities required to open opportunities.

• Have a high degree of involvement from beneficiaries and those with lived experience.

• Have a plan for sustainability and seek to deliver a lasting legacy.

Applications will be accepted from charities and CASCs (Community Amateur Sports Clubs) throughout the United Kingdom.

Find out more and apply here.

Paul Hamlyn Foundation Arts Fund

Amount: £90,000 - £300,000 (for 3 years)
Deadline: May 31, 2024

The Arts Fund provides core funding to cultural organisations that work at the intersection of art and social change.

They prioritise applications from charities that:

• build capacity and resources for culture within historically underfunded communities.

• explore the role that artists can play in addressing issues of social justice.

• create the infrastructure for a more equitable cultural sector.

• centre the lived experience of people affected by injustice in their programmes, leadership, and governance.

• are exploring how values of care, equity, and justice can be embedded in their own organisational culture.

• have a clear sense of their own role in supporting change as part of a wider ecosystem.

• are generous with their learning and working with other organisations towards mutual aims.

• use their creative practice to challenge traditional cultural hierarchies of genre and art form.

Find out more and apply here.

Yapp Charitable Trust

Amount: £3,000 a year for up to three years
Deadline: Rolling

The Trust awards grants for core funding, which it defines as: ‘the costs associated with regular activities or services that have been ongoing for at least a year.’

Funding priorities

• Work that is unattractive to the public or unpopular with other funders.

• Services that improve the lives of marginalised, disadvantaged, or isolated people.

• Applicants that can demonstrate an effective use of volunteers.

• Applicants that can demonstrate (where feasible) an element of self-sustainability by charging subscriptions/fees to service users.

Applications that don't address at least two of the above are unlikely to receive a grant.

Priority groups

• Elderly people.

• Children and young people.

• People with physical impairments, learning difficulties or mental health challenges.

• People trying to overcome addiction, relationship difficulties, abuse, or offending.

• Adults or children who are educationally disadvantaged.

Applications will only be considered from charities with a total annual expenditure of less than £40,000.

Find out more and apply here.

The Morrisons Foundation

Amount: Up to £10,000
Deadline: Rolling

The Morrisons Foundation supports registered charities making a positive difference in local communities across England, Scotland, and Wales.

The Foundation prioritises applications from charities with an income of less than £1m that deliver on (at least) one of the following objectives:

• Tackling poverty and social deprivation

• Enhancing community spaces, facilities, and services

• Improving health and wellbeing.

Funding can be used for capital spend or direct project delivery.

Find out more and apply 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.

Are our pets the next victims of the cost-of-living crisis?

The UK has a long-held reputation as a nation of animal lovers. But, the latest stats from the RSPCA have thrown that reputation into question.

According to the animal welfare charity, incidents of animal neglect and abandonment are at a three-year high, with 72,050 reports received in 2023 alone.

At the same time, calls to its rehoming helpline skyrocketed, but rehoming has declined sharply.

As a result, the charity’s ‘vital services are stretched to the limit’.

High cost of living to blame

The animal welfare charity attributes the startling statistics to the cost-of-living crisis, citing it as ‘one of the biggest threats to animal welfare’.

And you can see why.

The costs of pet ownership have risen faster than inflation. And it’s hitting pet parents hard.

According to the RSPCA, an average can of dog food cost £0.79 in April 2023. Today, it costs £1.05, a whopping 32% increase.

Insurance premiums have also risen by more than 3%.

Coupled with the extortionate costs of energy, food and rent, pet parents are being forced to make impossible decisions, and their pets are paying the price.

Desperate measures

Abandonment isn’t the only issue animals are facing.

The People's Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA) surveyed 5,507 dog, cat, and rabbit owners aged 18+ between 23 December 2022 and 18 January 2023.

The resulting Animal Wellbeing Report highlighted some concerning stats:

• 370,000 pet owners considered giving human medicine to their pet to avoid the cost of vet bills.

• 9% delayed taking their pet to the vet when they were ill because of the cost.

• 1% had their pet put down (230,000 animals).

• 10% couldn’t afford to neuter their pet.

However, the majority of respondents made personal sacrifices to ensure their pets didn’t go without:

• 770,000 pet owners skipped meals to look after their four-legged friends.

• 7% gave up personal luxuries.

• 16% reduced their energy consumption.

• 18% made savings on their weekly food shop.

A glimmer of hope

An article on the UK Parliament website says that, with the recent drop-in inflation rates (down from 11% in 2022 to 4% in 2024) and a fall in the price of gas and oil on the global stage, the cost of living could start to come down in the second half of 2024. But even with these falls they will still be well above pre-'energy crisis' levels.

In the meantime, the RSPCA recommends that struggling pet owners visit one of their pet food banks or contact their local RSPCA branch for further advice.

Looking for a fundraiser to support you through the cost-of-living crisis? we’ve got you covered. Call us on 0203 750 3111 for an informal chat.

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 020 3750 3111 or email us at info@bamboofundraising.co.uk 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.