Raising money never seemed to be this “popular”.
Sadly, not everyone can afford to do it.
Luckily, we streamers are in a good position for raising funds, especially those of us with a significant number of followers.
So, if you want to do a live stream with the sole purpose to raise money (AKA, charity stream) read on to discover the best tips and tricks as performed by successful charity streamers.
Table of Contents
Defining the Goals of Twitch Charity Stream
No matter what people tend to say, I tend to believe that every single person in this world was born with the urge to help others in need.
So if you are a successful Twitch streamer with an already built community, you can use this not only for your own personal gain and profit but you can also make your mission to help others.
Before we cover the actual steps for making successful charity streams on Twitch, here’s what you need to do before that.
Research
This practically means you need to answer a few questions such as:
The answer to the first one is easy – you wanna help out and tbh, you want to promote yourself a little bit.
The second one is important since the selected charity will be more successful if it aligns with something you like or something you want to achieve yourself.
Accordingly, finding one charity or charities will be an easy task.
Finally, if there is any event already closely related to the charity you want to organize, you can team up and make a good story.
Setting Goals
Hmm, having defined the above, you’ve pretty much set the initial goal and that is to help out.
As for the specific goals, once you know which charity you opted for, the goal will easily be achieved if you do the Twitch stream right.
Anyway, as long as you have realistic goals in front of you, there should be no major issues.
Let’s see it from an example.
Let’s say you want to fundraise 3,000USD and that is your primary and moreover realistic goal.
To make things easier, you can split the goal into milestones that are practically subgoals.
Let’s say the first milestones should be defined as reaching 250USD and 500USD and then proceed to 1000USD, 1500USD, etc.
Raising money in this way (through milestones) may get you to the goal faster since it plays with people’s minds.
Once they see you reach one milestone at a time, a larger audience will decide to join your charity stream.
Moreover, to animate your community on Twitch additionally and take your fundraising to the next level, you can throw some incentives in the mix.
These incentives may be something like every fifth donor gets to play a game with you or you can make a YouTube video together.
If you think a YouTube video is too large a prize, then you can try with some simple things such as a temp tattoo, having your hair completely cut, or whatever that you see fit.
Trust me, when you are a popular streamer, you dictate the market.
Anyway, with the help of little milestones and incentives, you will reach your goal faster.
Putting Things in Motion
Having found the charity you want to support and set the goals, your next step is to literally put things in motion that will lead to a successful charity stream.
So, here are the things you need to do, step by step.
1. Give Timely Information
If this is your first charity stream with the aim of raising funds and money for a good cause, then you need to know that you have to give notice in advance.
In a way, you need to start a campaign to promote the stream you are about to organize.
The ideal time to give the charity stream notice is some 2 weeks before you start the stream fundraiser.
In this way, you will build just enough suspension and more people are likely to join and aid your cause.
2. Advertise, Advertise, Advertise
I read somewhere that a good advertisement does half the job.
So, if you decided to create and host a live stream for fundraising purposes via the Twitch platform, you need to advertise it as best as you can.
Don’t just focus on your Twitch channel.
Instead, in addition to this streaming platform, advertise on your YouTube channel as well as other social media.
Use every opportunity while playing games on the platform to inform your audience of the event (i.e. charity streams) you are hosting to raise funds.
Tell them all about collecting donations – who is it for, what rewards (if any) the audience can expect, and team up with other successful streamers to help you outspread the news.
This will hype up the viewers for sure.
I don’t daresay millions, but you will build a substantial fundraising community like this that would be more than willing to support you and donate to your further fundraising activities.
3. Research
Again!
So, if you wanna raise funds via stream and collect as many donations as you can, you need to animate your audience to make them as involved as possible.
The reason is to hit the donation target quickly and move on to making someone life’s easier.
And, then maybe to a next fundraising event and charities.
So, as the charity stream date is approaching, feel free to ask your Twitch community members about the things they like/dislike.
If you wonder in which way this affects the overall funds raised, it is simple.
The input they give you may be used as an incentive to attract more people to the stream.
These small rewards can go a long way.
And, the larger the community and viewers’ support, the bigger the donation.
Not to mention that the fundraising process will go faster than you think.
4. Schedule the Event
Finally, we’ve reached that point where you need to officially set the date and include the fundraising event in your streaming schedule.
For the newbies, this is something you need to use the adequate tools for.
Of course, these tools are found in your channel page setup.
Go to channel settings > Creator Dashboard > Preferences > Channel > Select New.
Here you will be able to define things such as Start Time, Duration, Days of the week, Category, and Stream title.
Use all of these for the purpose you intended – in the Stream title, you can explain that it is gonna be a stream for charities, where the goal is to fundraise and donate this much money for this cause.
Also say whether it is something associated with a larger organization, for example, the American Red Cross, or similar.
5. Advertise
Again!
I may be repetitive, but it’s not enough to just say you’re gonna make a live stream for charities two weeks in advance.
Once you’ve officially scheduled the event, you need to inform the audience of the exact time, date, and purpose.
Your best aid for this purpose will be your channels on Twitch youtube and profiles on other social media.
Don’t refrain from posting the news on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Instagram accounts.
Practically, make a campaign out of it.
This means a larger community, more participants, money, and donations raised quickly, and highly effective and successful fundraisers.
Going Live
Finally!
As you’ve set the donation goal, and officially scheduled the date, once this date comes, all you’ve got to do is to hit the go-live button.
To make the donation process more interesting and get more viewers to donate to a good cause, you can use special tools to incorporate extensions, ChatBots, or overlays in your stream.
Luckily, you don’t have to search for a specific link since Twitch comes with a fundraising platform already included.
This will be a great support to you since while on stream these will additionally clarify what the charity/charities are all about – who you are raising the charity for, how many donations are expected, and how many funds need to get raised overall.
Moreover, while you are streaming, the extension will enable your Twitch community members to donate directly through the fundraising platform so you can observe it as a donation page per se.
Another reason why these extensions are a crucial addition is that they let you add a donations meter that always lets the people know how far along you are with the charity.
This will keep the community animated wanting to participate all the more.
This is why you can set a low milestone at first and ask a few trusted people to donate to cover for this.
Once the rest of the audience sees the donation meter hit the milestone, i.e. when they see people have already donated, they will decide to sign up for it and join the charity.
In this, the funds will be raised in no time.
As for overlays, you don’t have to bother looking for an additional link or site.
Everything comes with the fundraising platform.
These visual additions will make the charity streams more appealing.
Just make sure to select an adequate one.
Finally, Twitch ChatBots may be the greatest risk and at the same time an infallible supporting tool.
You can employ them for the call-to-action processes, for moderating chat, and or to involve viewers in mini-games to make sure no viewers opt out from your charity streaming.
In this way, you will make sure to get the donations, i.e. to fundraise faster and maybe proceed to other charities and charity events pending funds.
List of Fundraising Platforms
Before I officially close the article, let me just briefly list the good platforms you can use for your channel to make your charity stream more appealing.
There are a few other options too, but with these, you are sure to make an obvious success in the charity collecting process.
Conclusion
Despite the efforts of the few who are trying to erase us from the earth, the majority of us are still trying to make this world a better place.
Luckily, there are a few of us who can do so while having fun.
And, yes I do meanwhile spending time streaming on Twitch.
Obviously, Twitch can be used as a charity organization that can help you make a profit to be forwarded to those in need.
So, if you are a streamer aspiring to be a benefactor, find a cause that you want to support and schedule a charity stream today using these simple tips and tricks as described above.
No matter if you want to support the fight against the extinction of rare birds or you want to help our Doctors Without Borders – as long as it is a noble cause, you have a full right and now the means too to do it.
