4 Ways Your Impact Startup Can Rise Above the Noise

From climate change to food insecurity, there is no shortage of causes needing public attention in 2024. Unfortunately, traditional charitable organizations are finding it increasingly difficult to generate support. Half of Americans stopped making charitable donations in the past five years while overall public donations in the U.K. are down by a huge $6.4 billion.  

But this decline in donations doesn’t mean people no longer care. The global cost of living crisis means there is less money to go around. Instead, consumers are opting to support the causes they care about with progressive companies allowing them to align, for example, their political values with a banking provider. 

Using tech for good and building a commercially viable, scalable business model offers a win-win solution when addressing the complex societal challenges of 2024. Yet according to the Impact Startups 2023 report, founders are finding it increasingly tough to raise funds: Venture capital funding to impact startups across industries fell by 36 percent in 2023.

In the same way that charities could raise $115 million in donations from a viral ice-bucket challenge, impact startups in 2024 will need to get creative with campaigns to rise above the noise and catch the attention of users and investors alike. 

The good news is that digital channels still offer a viable way to do so. Whether it’s leveraging the power of newer social media features or finding creative content partnerships and online communities, here are four ways for social impact startups to increase visibility with audiences in 2024. 

Obtain global reach with influencers and experts 

Influencer marketing campaigns have proved phenomenally popular with brands and audiences alike in recent years. Impact startups can leverage a similar effect to support their campaigns but it’s important to choose influencers wisely and prioritize quality over quantity. Look to collaborate with influencers who frequently produce engaging content that aligns with your mission and interact with their follower base consistently. 

In this regard, the Red Cross chose to work with Steven Barlett, a British-Nigerian entrepreneur and active supporter of charity causes. Barlett is also the producer and host of The Diary of a CEO, which boasts 4.2 million subscribers on YouTube alone. 

Using his podcast backdrop for one Instagram post, Bartlett asked the audience a question that charity supporters often wonder: Where does your money go when you donate? 

The question acted as a powerful hook for a collaborative omnichannel campaign that aimed to raise and deliver funds to families affected by the devastating earthquakes in Turkey in early 2023. With Barlett’s support, the charity reached a huge new audience and encouraged future donations by highlighting how it uses cash cards to ensure that donations reach the people it’s intended for. 

Another example of how collaboration can help to increase the impact of marketing campaigns can be found with Mi Barrio Mi Sueno, an impact startup from Medellin, Colombia, run by Andrea Gonzalez Duarte, a Dutch national who was adopted from the country when she was a few weeks old. 

The organization is usually based in La Honda, a disadvantaged area of Medellín where many people are displaced because of internal conflict. For its Christmas donation campaign, Mi Arbol, Mi Sueno, the foundation headed out into the streets of the city to spread the Christmas cheer and allow children living on the streets to make their dreams a reality and receive a Christmas gift. 

By collaborating with Colombian videographer Jonathan Hernández Nassif during the campaign, the organization produced its most viral video to date, which gained 53,000 views. This underscores the powerful results that can be achieved when your team and collaborators act as social media advocates. When employees share content it generates eight times more engagement than brand-owned channels and boosts the reach of your campaign. 

Get benefactors to support your campaign

Benefactors can help in many ways, either by offering ongoing financial support to sustain a campaign’s momentum or by giving more strategic advice and mentorship.

Benefactors with strong networks or a large media footprint can help connect your impact startup with influencers and celebrities and significantly expand your campaign’s reach. They can also use their own websites, newsletters, or other channels to promote the campaign.

For example, Fabio Richter is the founder of the Hot Meal Challenge, an emergency appeal to tackle the United Kingdom’s rampant cost of living crisis launched in partnership with leading London-based food poverty charity Sufra. The campaign aims to provide food-insecure homes with hot meals and has been gaining traction with Gen Z students who can nominate one another to donate hot meals through a mobile application. 

Under the patronage of Lord Woolley of Woodford, Richter created the challenge to raise awareness about the damming effects hunger has on social isolation and mental well-being.

By collaborating with a prominent politician, the campaign could gain exposure and credibility at a much faster pace. Many politicians and public figures are keen to support impact startups and lend their names to worthy causes. But, remember, their internal reviews and processes can take time, which is why this should be an early priority within campaign plans. 

Make it easy for supporters to connect 

While the first generation of social media platforms focused on helping people connect with their existing networks online, newer platforms have ushered in new ways for people to find like-minded people across the world. 

For instance, user-generated hashtags have become an increasingly popular way to build communities for almost any area of interest you can imagine. It’s also helped more niche causes raise awareness and find peers and advocates on a global scale. 

The ADHD hashtag on TikTok has 14.5 billion views, while #adhdawareness boasts more than 500 million. Although ADHD wasn’t an unknown condition, the presence of hashtag-based communities has helped many more individuals understand the condition, find support, and receive a diagnosis where appropriate. Equally, environmental champions have found a new generation of supporters through digital channels, as highlighted by the numbers behind Sustainability Tok. 

In a similar vein, impact startup campaigns can leverage momentum found in these digital communities to elevate their cause. The Innocence Project, working to free innocent people and prevent wrongful convictions, relies on its community to sign petitions and generate awareness about specific cases they’re working on. For one campaign, they created the hashtag #savemelissalucio to increase engagement around a particular case. It was viewed almost three million times on TikTok.

While TikTok users sometimes leverage the platform for activism and many impact startups also aim to post about twice a month, it’s the impact startups that post more often that perform better. But these posts don’t need to take hours to create; they can look casual and less polished. Jenny Sagström, CEO of creative agency Sköna, noted that including photographs of real volunteers, members, and participants can be incredibly powerful. Doing so automatically feels more authentic and shows your audience that real people are affected by their donations and contributions. Sköna found this approach particularly effective for a holiday campaign with the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank. 

Boost reach with user-generated content 

Another effective way to boost the reach of impact startup causes is to lean into the popularity of templates that let supporters create their own content for your campaigns. Stitching — popularized by TikTok — can be used to powerful effect, letting followers engage with dance trends or respond to one of the popular “tell me about a time you …” narrative threads. As the original creator, you’ll get credited which could amplify your reach exponentially if audience engagement takes off. 

Another great way to unleash your creativity and start a trend that lets people share and engage rapidly is by using Spark AR Studio. It’s a powerful software for crafting captivating augmented reality effects for Instagram and Facebook, like filters, masks, and interactive experiences. 

Danish Ahmed, co-founder of startuptools.ai, with extensive experience in internet social media platforms, notes that it’s all about the personalization of messaging for impact startup campaigns, which can even extend to contextual targeting of ads on webpages. Providing templates and resources follows the same line of thought: It means impact startup organizations empower creators to maintain their creative freedom and individuality, spreading more personal messages to their own followers. 

Leveraging social media for good 

While there are numerous ways to make a positive impact, designing fundraising campaigns that have the objective of sparking transformative change can be daunting. 

The sheer volume of content out there vying for attention makes even the most seasoned marketer feel overwhelmed. But engaging global communities, looking for benefactors, leveraging trending hashtags, and providing easy-to-use templates for supporters, can be the silver bullet that impact startups need to harness the power of social media for positive change.

Artículo original de INC Magazine