Why should I connect iGive to Facebook?

 
  • Why do I want to do this?
As outlined in our knowledge base article "iGive Causes: Goals and Strategy," making iGive successful for your cause is a numbers game.  The more supporters actively using iGive to shop, the more money your cause will raise.  In a market study conducted in 2012, we found that causes that link their Facebook Fan page to iGive receive, on average, 395% more in donations than causes that do not. It is that simple.
 
  • How does connecting my iGive cause to Facebook get more supporters shopping?
iGive can make automatic posts to your Facebook Fan Page as the page itself, telling your followers to signup and support your cause through iGive; it can post shopping activity to your page to reaffirm that behavior and encourage other supporters to do so; it can post when your cause is receiving a check from iGive and more.  These posts & their frequency (which you control) reaffirm iGive with your followers as a way to help your cause.
 
  • What do we mean by a Fan Page?
A Facebook Fan page is NOT the same thing as a personal Facebook account/profile.  A Facebook account/profile belongs to one person (well, one email address anyway), and is presumably managed and used by one person. 
 
Facebook's web site says "Creating a Facebook Page allows the more than 2 billion people on Facebook to discover your business—think of your Page as a digital storefront."
 
So, a Fan page is about a company, a product, a charity, etc.  The page https://www.facebook.com/iGive is a Fan page. When you create a Fan page for your Cause on Facebook, you are automatically set as the "administrator" for that page which gives you the security rights to modify the page, grant other people access to it, and allow systems (like iGive) to post on your behalf to the page.  Fan pages are explained further in What's the difference between a profile, Page and group on Facebook? 
 
  • How does this whole thing work?
It's pretty simple really and we walk you through the whole process.  Some stuff occurs on the iGive.com website and some of it occurs on Facebook.  The stuff on Facebook we have no control over; they require that you provide the necessary permissions to make these connections and unfortunately make you go through several clicks to get it done.  But, that said, once you are done and connected, we can help you grow your iGive supporter base and get your donations on the move.  
 
Click here for a step by step process for connecting your Facebook Fan Page to your iGive Cause.

IMPORTANT NOTE: You MUST be an administrator, in Facebook, for the charity Facebook Fan page.  That means that the email address you use to log into Facebook must be an administrator for the Fan page.  If you aren't an administrator for the Fan page, you will not be able to set this up.