£5,000 grants for charities’ Facebook advertising available from Transform Foundation
Howard Lake | 3 February 2017 | News
UK charities can now apply for £5,000 grants to be spent on ‘innovative’ Facebook advertising campaigns. The funding comes from Transform Foundation, the charity that provides small and mid-sized charities with funding, research and training to transform their digital presence and increase their sustainable fundraising.
Transform Foundation already offer grants for charities to redevelop their websites. Google already offers up to $10,000 per month of free advertising to eligible charities through its Google for Nonprofits programme. So this funding fills a gap for those charities keen to explore or extend their advertising on Facebook.
Even better, the funding programme comes with an optional legacy campaign advertising element.
Rolling out in 2017
Competition for the funds is likely to be tight because the Foundation’s Facebook Advertising Grant Programme will be rolled out on a monthly basis throughout 2017. Each month five £5,000 grants will be allocated to UK charities , following an initial month of five pilot grants.
Applications for the Facebook Advertising Grant Programme are now open.
There are restrictions of course. For example charities must have a Facebook presence with over 1,000 Facebook likes.
Free managed legacy advertising campaign service
Charities that received the funding can also make use of an optional free managed campaign service to help them make the most of the opportunity by focusing on using Facebook adverts to attract legacy donors.
This service includes the strategy, content creation and advertising monitoring for each charity’s Facebook campaign funded by the grants. It is provided by Farewill, the Transform Foundation’s preferred partner for this project. The digital will-writing service manages Facebook campaigns for a number of charities.
Dan Garrett, CEO, Farewill, commented:
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“For charities that lack the above-the-line firepower and deep pockets of the biggest third sector brands, but which have a receptive audience, Facebook can be a highly powerful fundraising tool. But it’s a tool that’s still largely untapped…
“Our goal is to give the charities accepted by the Transform Foundation an insight into what’s achievable through Facebook and the skills to manage campaigns themselves in the future.”
What Transform Foundation does
Transform Foundation’s grant programmes has two aims:
- raising more funds for each funded charity
- and using comparative data to benchmark best practice in online giving for the success of the sector.
As a result, it knows that its first website grant programme has resulted in charities raising more than £1.3 million in its first year.
David Melville, Chair of the trustees of Transform Foundation, explains:
“Transform Foundation was set up to empower small and mid-sized charities to transform their digital presence and capability to raise money online by teaming up with proven experts in the digital world. In Farewill, we have secured a partner that fits that profile and in Facebook, the world’s leading social network, charities have an unrivalled platform to spread their word and raise funds. This year, we will be announcing more strategic partners and grant programmes to help charities maximise their fundraising and impact online.”
Melville has a long background in digital. He was Legal Director of Freeserve prior to its flotation and ultimate sale to Orange (now EE) for over $2.3 billion in 2000, and has also headed up the legal teams at Argos and Amazon.
Applications for the Facebook Advertising Grant Programme opened yesterday.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.