YouTube Launches New Fundraising Tools for Nonprofits | Digital Scoop 028

YouTube is launching YouTube Giving, will enable creators to raise awareness, and money, for their chosen organizations via the video platform with a new set of fundraising tools which will include Fundraisers, Community fundraisers, Campaign Matching, and Super Chat for Good.

The Fundraisers feature will allow YouTube creators and qualifying 501(c)(3) nonprofits to create and embed a fundraising campaign next to their videos and live streams. Fans are able to donate to campaigns directly on YouTube via a “Donate” button, making it easier than ever for creators and fans to raise funds for causes they care about on the platform. Creators set their campaigns up and YouTube will take care of the logistics and payment processing.

The Community Fundraisers allows multiple creators to co-host the same fundraiser. The feature is designed so that a Community Fundraiser will appear on participating creators’ videos at the same time and reflect the collective amount of money their communities are raising together.

The Campaign Matching feature, which is not yet available, will allow creators who organize Fundraisers and Community Fundraisers to receive matching pledges to help amplify their efforts.

And finally, the Super Chat for Good feature will enable creators to raise funds for nonprofits via the YouTube live-streaming Super Chat payment system. The option is in limited testing, with YouTube covering all transaction fees in the initial period – meaning that 100% of the donations go to the relevant organizations.

YouTube currently has 1.8 billion monthly active users. There is an amazing potential your cause and fundraiser can reach with the new features.

Online fundraising is a popular activity today across sites like GoFundMe, Kickstarter, and Indiegogo. Facebook also entered the market in mid-2016 when it rolled out the ability for its users to raise funds for nonprofits they support.

The company this year has been expanding the types of things creators can do with their videos, in the face of increased competition from Facebook Watch and Amazon’s Twitch. If you’re a non-profit organization, it’s worth looking into these new tests, and keeping an eye on the platforms updates and evolutions.

YouTube Launches Channel Memberships, Merchandise and Premieres | Digital Scoop 026

YouTube Goes After Instagram

YouTube creators are gaining three major new tools to generate revenue from their videos outside of traditional advertising, as well as those that will help them better engage their fans. This comes after Instagram’s launch of IGTV, so clearly this is a rebuttal since IGTV offers similar features.

This new features include rollout of channel memberships, merchandising, and the launch of Premieres. 

Memberships

Creators with 100,000 subscribers or more, are over 18 and members of the YouTube Partner Program qualify for this feature. For $4.99 per month, this feature will allow subscribers to gain access to members-only posts in the Community tab where creators can share custom perks, like access to an exclusive videos, news, announcements, and more. YouTube says it will vet these perks manually, to ensure they meet YouTube’s guidelines and are something the creator can actually deliver. The perks can be almost anything the creator wants to offer, within YouTube’s guidelines.

Merchandise

In addition to memberships, creators will also be able to sell to fans directly. The feature will show pictures of creators’ merchandise in a display under their videos. This tool is available to all channels in the U.S. with over 10,000 subscribers. This greatly increases the visibility of YouTubers’ branded gear on the platform. Previously, creators could only paste a link with no options to upload images of their merchandise in their video descriptions. This has the opportunity to increase sales by getting more clicks to products. Previously, people had to click “show more” to see the full description, creating an extra step in the process.

Premieres

Finally, YouTubers can use a new feature called “Premieres” that creates a landing page they can promote ahead of a video’s release. This page will also have a chat feature, like Live videos do, which means creators can use Super Chat and take advantage of Channel Membership perks even if they aren’t doing live content.

The videos are uploaded in the same interface on YouTube, so there’s no new workflow to learn beyond toggling the “Premiere” switch on. Creators can also join in the chats as the video goes live to engage with their fans around this pre-recorded content, as well as comment on the videos before they start. When the Premiere wraps, it’s posted as a regular video on the site (without the two-minute countdown video YouTube adds).

What’s next?

YouTube said its version of Stories will arrive for all eligible creators with more than 10,000 subscribers later this year as well. The announcements come at a critical time for YouTube, as Facebook and Instagram are trying to woo creators away to their platforms and video hubs with unique features of its own.