Is A Donate Button Coming To Twitter?

The ability to donate directly inside Twitter may be coming to a nonprofit near you!

Last week, Twitter announced that it will start testing a Buy button embedded into individual tweets.

The company aims to encourage shopping directly from your mobile device – “sellers will gain a new way to turn the direct relationship they build with their followers into sales.”

The first question on my mind was, of course, what about a Donate button for nonprofits?

Thankfully Twitter did not completely overlook nonprofits.

They listed 7 in their list of beta test partners for the Buy button: 9/11 Day of Service, the Nature Conservancy, Global Citizen, Glide, GLAAD, DonorsChoose.org, and Product Red.

It is unclear whether these charities will be using the Buy button to sell t-shirts and other products, or if they will be using it to solicit general donations.

Of course, raising money via Twitter is nothing new – companies like TweetDonate and tinygive have built entire software platforms designed to help nonprofits raise money using the social network.

The Buy button, combined with the opening up of the Twitter analytics dashboard to all (it was previously only open to advertisers), nonprofits are in a much better position to fully understand their reach on Twitter, what works and what falls flat.

Do you use Twitter at your nonprofit? Leave a comment below.

Comments 5

Diana Altobelli

I think the donate button is not far off. With viral awareness’s such as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and when natural disaster hits organizations like the Red Cross can use this “donate” button to help those in need. For occurrences like Hurricane Katrina and Sandy or any other disease out there.