What if you could speak a thousand words about your nonprofit?
What would you say?
You’ve heard it before: a picture speaks a thousand words. So every time you share an image about your nonprofit, you’re essentially making a giant statement about it.
Social sites like Instagram are key for a nonprofit’s strategy, because every image conveys a message about you. It’s also another way to have the good you’re doing in the world seen, supported, and shared.
“Social sites like Instagram are key for a nonprofit’s strategy, because every image conveys a message about you…”
What are some of the best practices for nonprofits on Instagram? We’re going to answer that with six stellar examples of nonprofits who are nailing it on Instagram.
Plus, we’ll finish this top-players list with a quick cheat sheet for yourself, to give you handy takeaways you can start doing now.
1. World Bicycle Relief
World Bicycle Relief provides bikes for rural Africans to improve their livelihood. This Instagram account shows a captivating collection of smiling faces and portraits of humans whose daily lives have been transformed by owning a bike.
Although Africa has beautiful landscapes and majestic animals that provide plenty of social media fodder, this nonprofit didn’t focus on those. Instead, they chose to capture only the human stories behind their mission.
What They’re Doing Right
- Human centric images that connect to viewers’ hearts
- Feature youth and others directly helped, in order to show actual impact achieved
- Smiling facings of clients shows their positivity despite difficult lives
- Great lighting in every photo creates a sense of hopefulness
- Family and group photos give a sense of large scale impact
- Bicycle photos show the physical product donated
- Images of people using their bicycles tell the story of transformed lives
- Branded images for #givingtuesday and special campaigns
2. Neverthirst
Neverthirst provides water solutions for North Africa and Southern Asia. What makes their Instagram portfolio stand out is how the images show dire need for clean water.
This nonprofit effectively demonstrates the risky situation of families and individuals who are relying on foul, muddy water. Several Instagram posts compare glasses of cloudy and clean water, thereby emphasizing the urgent need for fresh drinking source.
What They’re Doing Right:
- Demonstrate the urgent need that their work addresses
- Pictures of dirty water to illustrate crisis
- Feature people who are experiencing water shortage
- Images of work being done to help those in need
- Photos of local partners and planning process, to give donors a “behind the scenes” perspective
- Fundraising images, to show efforts being made in North America
- Images of families successfully helped to communicate success
3. World Help
World Help is a humanitarian organization with a variety of projects targeting refugees, human trafficking, and child sponsorship, among others.
The great thing about their Instagram collection is how they highlight portraits of kids and youth as a way of promoting their child sponsorship program. Instead of photographing children in groups, they focus on individuals, showing each child’s personality or his or her daily activities, such as studying. In this way, their images invite potential sponsors to support.
What They’re Doing Right:
- Single person focus e.g. portrait of a child to encourage child sponsorship
- Show youth in their context e.g. studying, to help donors understand backstory
- Images of project locations e.g. Baby Rescue House, to help donors see institutions established through donor dollars
- Positive, smiling faces that portray hope
- Images of special campaigns e.g. supplies to Cuba, to show quick response to crises
4. Earth Rights
Earth Rights fights environmental injustice and protects human rights. They know how to work Instagram by creating beautifully filtered, highly shareable content.
While many nonprofits simply upload images unedited, Earth Rights takes it a step further by applying washes and filters. These boosted images are more pleasing to the eye, and it’s this type of touched-up content that is popularly shared.
What They’re Doing Right:
- Focus firstly on people and projects central to their mission
- Filters to make images look more eye-catching
- Shareable images that have the right aesthetic for social media
- Celebrity photos to draw attention e.g. a group photo with President Obama
5. Roots and Shoots
Roots and Shoots is a project of Jane Goodall Institute that promotes literacy in Indonesia and spreads awareness about deforestation.
In this nonprofit’s case, the visionary Jane Goodall is central to the organization’s image. So it makes sense to highlight her active involvement on Instagram. Goodall’s high profile serves to drive support for their cause.
What They’re Doing Right:
- Feature the visionary Jane Goodall and highlight her strong involvement
- Promote fashion partnerships to garner attention e.g. sweater collaboration with a major brand label
- Highlight branded merchandise e.g. Roots and Shoots slogan t-shirts
- Create images with quotes e.g. nonprofit’s motto “Grow Something”
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Read the full article at:Cause Vox
