Their communities are incredibly socially aware and philanthropic, so now streaming platforms are often used as fundraising tools for charity purposes.
In 2020, streamers gathered over 83 million dollars for Hospitals and Charity foundations. And in 2021, streamers made 10+ million bucks during one streaming marathon.
Moreover, Twitch perfectly understands its importance for the new age philanthropists. In July 2022, they added a bunch of charity tools for the streamer dashboard and partnered with famous fundraising platforms to simplify gathering money for charity.
Let’s find out what these charity fundraising activities on Twitch mean for an average streamer and how to use them for helping those in need.
Twitch Charity Fundraising: How to Start
Earlier, there were no specific tools for charity purposes on Twitch. If some streamer wanted to gather money to support ill children or protect wild nature, he had to use third-party donation platforms. It was challenging, cause it was pretty hard to report how much money was made and what foundation it was donated to.
Streamers asked Twitch to create some charity tool, and the platform responded by adding it to the Streamer Dashboard.
A streamer may use the new Charity category to set up streams. The main feature is that all raised funds will be directly donated to charity according to PayPal Giving Fund’s policies. Twitch takes no cut of the donations.
Firstly, Twitch has partnered with some popular fundraising platforms: Tifty, Streamlabs Charity, JustGiving, DonorDrive, and betterplace. Streamers can easily set up a charity broadcast, and all raised funds will be directly donated to the chosen foundation and provided with a report for the audience.
The first step of starting a charity stream is choosing a foundation for which he wants to raise money. Now, over a few dozens of them are available, and the number is increasing, cause Twitch welcomes new foundations to partner with.
Next, setting the goal. Keep in mind that a streamer can increase this goal any time, but can’t decrease it.
Twitch recommends setting a realistic goal. Of course, having big ambitions is fine, but a streamer watched by just a thousand people just can’t raise one million dollars.
And the third step is setting up the donation panel.
It has a brief description and the needed sum of money. A broadcaster may place it as a stream overlay, add direct donation buttons, or pin messages for the audience.
And that’s all. A streamer can start a charity stream immediately or plan the broadcast at a certain time.
There also were some minor changes in the streaming Activity Feed. Now, one may show up charity donations and see who has donated and how much.
Also, streamers got some tools to promote and manage campaigns. For example, providing a simple direct link to a campaign that doesn’t even need a Twitch account to participate.
If the goal wasn’t reached during a single stream, raising can be paused. For example, when the next planned broadcast is just for fun and doesn’t match the idea of charity activities. But only one charity raising may be active at a time. To start another one, a streamer needs to pause the previous campaign.
There is a tool for campaign accountability. A streamer can see the amount and the time of every single donation made by the audience. If needed, this data may be published to thank everyone who takes part.
All donated money is sent to the chosen organization when a fundraising campaign is done and stopped. Streamers do nothing in this process, so it removes all possible issues of trust and confidence.
Twitch Helps Streamers to Make Their Charity Fundraising Campaigns Better
Twitch is highly interested in the rapid development of its charity tool. Cause it affects the popularity of the platform in media and attracts the attention of new potential users.
To motivate streamers making charity broadcasts and teach them how to do it right, Twitch has created a step-by-step guide that describes all they need to know.
The main focus is setting goals, milestones, and incentives.
The guide helps to understand how to communicate with an audience when fundraising for charity. Cause there is a difference between regular streams and broadcasts for charity purposes.
Moreover, there are lots of useful tips for streamers. For example, a broadcaster wanted to perform a three-hour charity stream and set a pretty small goal, and unexpectedly it was collected in 15 minutes. That is not a point to close the raising, cause a streamer may just up the goal.
Something like that:
Hey everyone, we’ve hit our initial goal of $2500! It’s just WOW! Our new stretch goal is $7500….and if we hit it, I’ll be dying my hair purple!
The guide teaches how to make fundraising the most effective for a chosen foundation. The more money, the better. It may not work for a streamer’s own needs, but it will for treating children in a hospital.
Every dollar counts, so charity streams should not be stopped even when they reach their goals.
If a streamer wants to raise lots of money, he may need some milestones. Cause collecting, for example, $10 000 at a time is pretty hard, but four times in 2500 bucks is a bit easier psychologically. Simple trick, but effective.
And last but not the least, incentives. Cause a streamer must motivate the audience to donate money. And this is more the tool for the right communication and knowledge of an audience.
It’s about specific actions that a streamer does when donations hit some milestone. Here are some examples:
Every $20, I’ll put a temporary tattoo on my body.
When we get halfway, I’ll dance in a chicken costume.
If we complete a goal in 3 hours, I’ll play that scary game I hate.
These actions depend on what an audience likes and waits for. It should cause the “oh, I want to see it” reaction. And it’s all about getting as much money as possible.
Twitch guide for hyping a charity stream
Moreover, Twitch experts tell newbie streamers how to promote their charity streams. It’s simple but effective tips that help to attract an audience and increase its activity when the stream is on air. For example:
- Announce your charity stream. The audience has to know about it in advance — at least two weeks before the start. More people, more money gathered.
- Create posts on social media. Accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and other socials should tell about the forthcoming charity stream. Reposts are appreciated.
- Schedule an event. Yeah, that’s simple, but newbies rarely do this. Twitch settings allow scheduling a stream, so the community will be aware of it.
- Communicate with the audience. That’s important. Cause people donate money to the chosen foundation not because they want to give some money for charity but because their beloved streamer asks them to do it.
- Hype on the stream. A charity stream has not to be like a regular broadcast. It should feel like something special. A content maker must talk a lot and constantly remind about the broadcast goal.
And it’s awesome that Twitch not only gives a tool for philanthropic activities but also teaches streamers how to make their charity broadcasts more effective.
What are the results?
It’s been a few months after creating charity mode on Twitch, and we may sum up and draw some conclusions.
For the last month, streamers hosted 328 charity broadcasts worldwide. And the overall time of this kind of stream was more than 1519 hours. So an average charity stream length is about 5 hours, which is a lot.
Moreover, these streams are very well received by Twitch users. Followers watched over 81 000 hours of them. And what’s interesting, over 90% of streamers hosting charity broadcasts are mid-level and have up to 20 000 followers. Just a few top streamers conducted events for charity purposes, but there was a reason — many of them hosted charity events even when the tool for it didn’t exist. They’re not hyping but just doing their job. Sure, not every top streamer takes part in philanthropy activities but though.
So back to the charity streams. Philanthropy on Twitch got to a brand new level. Hundreds of broadcasters are uniting to get more money for charity foundations. On the 9-11th of September, 57 French streamers held a live streaming marathon named Z-Event. And in three days, they raised amazing 10 181 126 Euros for Sea Shepherd, LPO, WWF, Time For The Planet, and The SeaCleaners foundations. That’s the power launched by Twitch.
Of course, the hype around the tool is not eternal. But just in three months, streamers gathered about 100 million dollars for charity. And it’s just wow. Remember our words: in the future, the most known philanthropists will be from Twitch.
