Back in May 1st, 2019 Instagram followed in the steps of its parent Facebook and added a way for users to easily donate to nonprofits. Similar to Facebook’s donation button, Instagram covers 100% of credit card/processing fees for nonprofits that are officially registered 501c organizations approved by Facebook.
- Step 1: Go through the Facebook Charitable Giving Tools set up.
- Step 2: Connect Instagram to Facebook account
- Step 3: Make sure the Instagram account is set to business profile. Note that recent shifts in the Instagram algo have been decreasing the reach of business profiles. Consider creating a new official donation business profile for your organization.
In August of 2020, Instagram began rolling out donate buttons for business profile pages too.
To add the donate button on Instagram, make sure your account is able to add stickers by going to Publishing Tools < Donation Settings (by fundraisers, select “Allow people to add donation stickers on Instagram stories”.
To add a donate button to your nonprofit’s Instagram business account:
- Go to your profile and tap the menu .
- Tap Settings > Tap Business > Donations.
- Tap next to Add Donate Button to Profile.
Podcast on Instagram Donation Stickers
Once your nonprofit is set to a business profile, registered on Facebook and connected to your Instagram account you should now show up in the sticker donation search for users posting the donate sticker. Stickers only show up for Instagram stories and not the traditional posts. These donation stickers can then be added to support your cause by any user on Instagram. Though, it should be noted in the search that accounts that users follow will get featured in the nonprofit search. In the following screenshots you can see the new donation sticker, then on-click it shows a list of nonprofits to support.
Instagram Donation Sticker Strategy
Once your nonprofit is registered through Facebook and connected on Instagram consider creating a simple guide showing with images like the one above showing how your followers can support the cause. Try creating a mini-campaign with one of these general fundraising ideas that allows your followers to use their creativity around the donation ask.
Brainstorm fun ideas like:
- Benefit the Beach pics, challenging followers to post their best beach pics
- Pics Pets for a Purpose, see which of your followers cute pets can move the most people to donate through Instagram, pay attention to hashtags like #PugsOfInstagram.
- Use the #UnSelfie format to invite followers to post why they support the cause and include a donation sticker
- Outreach to Instagram influencers with targetted asks to support the cause
- Summer fundraising ideas can all be paired with an Instagram sticker donation ask
- For any live event, ask supporters to #MakeStoriesMatter, sharing a quick video of why they support your cause at the event and add the donation sticker.