Impacts of Facebook Usage on Non-Profits and Donors Relationship Building and Maintenance

Abstract

Social media especially Facebook which has been identified as an effective means of interaction between non-profit organizations and the donors has not been examined along building trust and maintaining relationship. Whereas, this is more expedient because it is increasingly becoming difficult for non-profit organizations to maintain strong connections with the totality of the regular and potential donors and volunteers. In response to the challenges, this paper explores the perceptions of the managers and donors of non-profit organizations on how Facebook can take care of the difficulties of building trust and maintaining relationship which are the bedrock of fundraising and donation. Qualitative method with in-depth interview approach through a purposive sampling was adopted to probe into the impact of building and maintaining relationship. The data was analyzed thematically using NVIVO. The findings revealed that Facebook is mostly used by non-profit organizations to build and maintain good relationship with donors and the public. Similarly, the general perceptions shown that public trust is one of the most valuable commodities that any non-profit organization can have, and the degree to which donors trust these organizations have a huge impact on how they donate.

Keywords: Facebook, non-profit organization, donor, volunteer, social media