Coming Soon: Facebook Integration With TeamRaiser

On November 29^th, in conjunction with Facebook’s Social Good Summit, Blackbaud announced that it will integrate its fundraising and engagement solutions with Facebook. This integration will first be available in TeamRaiser, with plans to expand integration capabilities to other solutions over time.
 
What is the integration and why is it important? 
Nonprofits have wanted to leverage Facebook as a fundraising channel but it’s come with challenges. Without the integration, there is no way to tie the Facebook donations back to an existing campaign outside Facebook. This integration provides organizations a way to leverage the reach of the Facebook platform while managing, processing and recording those donations directly in TeamRaiser. With one click after registering, users can publish TeamRaiser fundraisers to Facebook. Event supporters can simultaneously solicit donations via their own social networks and their TeamRaiser pages, while nonprofits can view and manage Facebook transactions within TeamRaiser.

How will it help your organization?
Early results from our pilot customers have highlighted the following benefits:   

• Increase in dollars raised.  Participants can meet their goal faster by easily reaching their Facebook friends. Also, Facebook Fundraisers are native content and get higher reach in the News Feed than an external share.
• Superior donor experience. Take advantage of Facebook’s interface and allow donors to give in just a few steps without ever having to leave Facebook.
• Efficiently manage fundraising campaigns. Dollars raised from Facebook are reflected within the TeamRaiser campaigns and reporting.  

How is this integration different from Facebook sharing capabilities in TeamRaiser?
With Facebook sharing in TeamRaiser, users post an external link to their TeamRaiser fundraising page to share on Facebook. The new integration allows users to create a Facebook fundraiser with one click in the participant center. It is categorized as native Facebook content with higher priority than posting an external link. The donations are completed within Facebook but Teamraiser remains the backend to process the donation. The dollars raised will be displayed on both the TeamRaiser and Facebook fundraising pages.

When will it be ready? 
Three enterprise nonprofits piloted this integration over the last few months – JDRF, National Multiple Sclerosis Society and Susan G. Komen. We will be rolling out the integration to all US-based TeamRaiser customers in Spring 2018.  We are working with Facebook to outline a plan for international capability.
 
We’re thrilled that Blackbaud was the first software company Facebook asked to build an integration leveraging the new Fundraisers API and hope you are too!  Stay tuned for more information.