Haworth Cat Rescue - Social Media Case Study

Haworth Cat Rescue - Social Media Case Study

Using social media for fundraising

Introduction

Haworth Cat Rescue is a rescue, rehabilitation and rehousing centre for stray, homeless and unwanted cats and kittens. Over 300 cats and kittens come through their doors each year to be looked after and rehoused.

Managing this number of cats requires considerable space, time and money, all of which are in short supply.

The aims of the organisation include generating enough money to run the current centre and raising funds to open a new larger centre capable of responding to the feline needs of the surrounding districts.

One of the means of doing this is through their social media strategy.

Target Audience

The nature of an animal charity means that their audience is not bounded by age, gender or geography. Whilst the majority of supporters stem from the surrounding districts within West and North Yorkshire there are also many who live further afield both within the UK and abroad. They also consist of children, adults and the elderly alike. For this reason Haworth Cat Rescue have the potential for using a variety of social media tools thereby tapping into this broad market area.

Social Media Strategy Goals

Having established via research and experience that direct requests for money do not work, they focussed their social media aims in 2 key directions. The first was to get as many people as possible to visit their website – www.haworthcatrescue.org – where donation button options are clear and on every page. The second was to raise awareness of the specific campaign to open a new larger centre. Whilst both of these goals were quite specific and focussed on fundraising, their social media strategy reflected their approach as an organisation with an emphasis on building relationships, which in turn would lead to achieving their fundraising goals.

The Website – www.haworthcatrescue.org

This is at the heart of the organisation. It is here that visitors can get a real feel for the organisation, can find out what is going on and crucially, can donate money to the charity. Donation buttons are CharityGiving and Paypal. Interestingly since an explanation was put on the site by each donation button that Paypal make a fee and CharityGiving do not, donations have increased with the majority going via the CharityGiving button.

Facebook – Haworth Cat

This is used extensively and is the main social media driver. This is simply because it suits the nature of the charity with many supporters using Facebook and the format lending itself to regular updates, photos, responses, links etc. They have a Facebook Group and a Facebook Page – Haworth Cat. This use of Haworth Cat brings an opportunity to brand the charity in a way that they had previously not done.

Their Facebook page also links automatically to their Twitter page.

Twitter - haworthcatrescu

Because the flow of information is generally outwards they have chosen to use Twitter as a secondary social media element. Most tweets are the headlines of the posts put up onto Facebook and automatically fed into their Twitter account. This inevitably leads people to their Facebook and from their onto their website. Occasionally they will put up tweets which link people directly with their website.

Blog – www.haworthcatrescue.blogspot.com

This is used on a more or less monthly basis with the aim of drawing people’s attention to issues such as the importance of neutering.

The overall effects of this social media strategy are seen in the following ways

• Increased and increasing visitor number to the website
• Increasing numbers of friends and followers
• Increased flow of information, discussion and feedback
• Regular monthly donations
• Increased awareness of the organisation and the issues
• Development of long term relationships with users/friends/followers

Next Steps

Haworth Cat Rescue are very aware of the need to bring in extra funds to ensure their long term survival and expansion. They are in the process of expanding their links with key partners and will be setting up an online retail outlet for all things cat related. Their social media strategy has allowed them to get to a point where this will now be feasible. Indeed their use of social media will be at the heart of this expansion with an increased emphasis on marketing and fundraising. They are exploring the possibilities of using YouTube to give a more personal and emotive story to the centre and as commercial opportunities develop they will experiment with their balance of social media tools to get the greatest response.