My approach to nonprofit social media management is based in stewardship. If every post is an ask, you might as well pour your entire budget into ads.
People need to see impact before they give. They need social proof. They need reminders that their support matters. Most importantly, they need to build trust in your organization over time.
The journey from follower to supporter rarely happens after a single post. It happens through consistent storytelling, transparency, and showing people the difference they’re helping make.
In an era of AI-generated copy, audiences quickly recognize posts that read like ads. Writing effective social media requires a creator who stays connected to the culture of each platform and understands its language.
Social Media Content
Yes, I have created viral posts. While virality is often a metric leadership and boards look for, it is not always the most meaningful measure of fundraising impact. Viral content captures attention quickly. Sustained engagement and donor trust are what drive results. That being said, I know how to make a post travel when the moment calls for it. Below are examples of my viral posts using memes or trending audio:
Lovebugs Post (291K views on Instagram)
Invasive Species (104K views on Instagram)
Manatee Meme (69K views on TikTok)
Coral Bleaching Event (24.2K views on Instagram)
Campaign Case Study
Wildlife Linguistics is a social media content campaign I designed to explore how conservation organizations can connect with new audiences through truly organic, scrollable content on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Instead of treating social media as a stream of advertisements, this campaign focuses on using video platforms as they are designed to be used, prioritizing content that feels native to the feed.
This campaign reflects my social media management philosophy that brands perform best when they participate as members of the online community rather than advertisers talking at an audience. Users have learned to scroll past content that only asks for something. By offering content that prioritizes connection over promotion, Wildlife Linguistics demonstrates how organic social media can build trust, awareness, and long term engagement on video driven platforms.
In an effort to increase our social media following in offline settings like events, I designed a social card to hand out and include in donor letters. A PDF of the print file can be view here.
Below is a selection of posts from an Instagram account I currently manage with 17K followers and growing. (Across platforms, I manage accounts with a combined audience of 50K followers.)
Rachael Schirmer 