How to Use Social Media to Boost Your Hospital Fundraising Campaigns

While social media often isn’t directly the biggest revenue driver for hospital fundraising, it can still be a useful tool for building awareness at low to no cost, fostering community connections, and gently guiding potential donors toward deeper involvement. 

Below, we share tips on how a hospital fundraiser can leverage different platforms to enhance broader fundraising campaigns—without relying solely on likes and shares to fund major projects.

1. Know Each Platform’s Strengths

Different social platforms serve different purposes and have different algorithms. By aligning your hospital fundraising goals with each channel’s unique features that you have available to you, you can more effectively engage your audience:

• Facebook: Share patient stories (with patient’s permission), highlight staff, and build online communities. 

• Instagram: Use visuals (picture and video) to bring hospital initiatives to your constituents—ideal for volunteer highlights, facility images, and short behind-the-scenes clips.

• LinkedIn: Engage professional audiences and potential corporate partners who can provide sponsorship or volunteer support, as well as promoting your brand. 

• Twitter/X: Spark quick, real-time conversations about hospital updates or upcoming volunteer opportunities.

A platform-by-platform strategy can prevent you from spreading resources too thin and ensures that each channel has a clear role in your fundraising campaigns. If your hospital doesn’t have one or more of these platforms, don’t worry! You don’t necessarily need to be on every platform for your online presence to be effective.

2. Tell Genuine Stories to Build Emotional Connection

A key advantage of social media is its ability to personalize content to send out very quickly at no cost:

• Patient and Staff Spotlights: With appropriate consent, showcase the journeys of those who have benefited from or contributed to hospital care. Sharing these narratives helps to humanize your hospital. Show the people behind the hospital logo! 

• Behind-the-Scenes Looks: Brief peeks into day-to-day hospital life—like a new piece of equipment being installed—remind followers there’s always something happening behind the curtains of healthcare. 

This emotional connection won’t necessarily translate into large gifts overnight, but it does help keep your hospital top of mind for future contributions or community-driven efforts.

3. Encourage Community Participation

Social media shines when it comes to rallying supporters for quick, easy actions that can build you some momentum:

• Peer-to-Peer Sharing: Prompt followers to share your posts or create their own, weaving in personal stories and reasons for supporting your hospital fundraising campaigns.

• User-Generated Content (UGC): Invite community members to tag the hospital in their posts—whether sharing personal milestones from receiving care or volunteering. This is good for pretty much every social media platform’s algorithm. 

These quick, easy engagements may not yield high-dollar gifts directly, but they do expand your reach for smaller gifts and first time donors, and strengthen your hospital’s reputation as a community resource.

4. Provide Clear Next Steps

If someone is moved by a social media post, make it very easy for them to take the next step:

• Donation Links: Include a concise link to your official donation page or a specific campaign landing page in post captions or bios. They should get access to the credit card screen almost immediately. Each additional step they have to take decreases the chance of them following through with the contribution.

• Event Registration or Volunteer Sign-Up: Offer a direct link to sign up for things like upcoming volunteer opportunities or informational webinars about your hospital’s work.

Removing friction between inspiration and giving helps capture the engagement social media generates and funnel it toward more significant participation.

5. Tie Social Media to Existing Campaigns

Social media often works best in concert with your broader fundraising campaigns:

• Cross-Promotion: Reference direct mail appeals, email newsletters, or ongoing campaign progress in social posts, and include a hashtag or link that ties these channels together.

• Offline-to-Online: If you’re hosting a small donor appreciation event or unveiling a new department, snap a few photos or shoot a short video to share on social afterward. Followers who couldn’t attend can still feel part of the story.

By weaving social media into other campaign communication efforts, you create a seamless donor experience across all touchpoints.

6. Leverage Analytics for Insight (Not Guarantees)

Metrics such as likes, comments, and shares can offer clues about your audience’s interests, but they don’t guarantee revenue:

• Engagement Rates: Monitor which types of posts earn the most interaction. Use these insights to refine your content strategy.

• Website Traffic: Track how many visitors click from social posts to your donation or volunteer sign-up pages.

While these numbers don’t always result in large donations, they help you better understand how supporters discover and connect with your hospital fundraiser initiatives.

7. Keep Expectations Realistic

Social media should complement—rather than replace—other fundraising channels like major-gift solicitations, grant proposals, and even direct mail. Be practical and acknowledge that:

• Most Large Gifts Come Elsewhere: High-capacity donors often require personal engagement, prospect research, and long-term relationship building.

• Social Media is a Starting Point: It’s a tool for reaching new audiences, keeping existing supporters in the loop, and directing followers toward more substantial forms of involvement (like your fully optimized website).

Recognizing social media’s supportive role keeps you from overinvesting in a channel that may not yield substantial revenue on its own.

Social media can be a useful tool for any hospital fundraiser looking to broaden awareness, nurture donor relationships, and provide real-time glimpses into healthcare life. If you haven’t had much success in fundraising through social media, it’s okay! It’s actually the norm. 

However, when used thoughtfully, social media does have its place in helping hospitals build stronger connections that lead to deeper donor commitment over time.

If you’re looking for ways to accelerate your fundraising campaign, contact Pride Philanthropy to speak with one of our experts.