Bluesky for nonprofits and charities
A campaign week planned in advance, several people posting under one approval, a donation link you can measure, and figures a trustee will read.
Why nonprofits are on Bluesky
Because supporters are here, and because the feed is in order: a charity with a few hundred followers is seen by all of them when it posts, without paying to reach people who already chose to follow it. Bluesky sells no advertising. The communities a cause belongs to, local, medical, environmental, have feeds and starter packs of their own.
Setting up
- A handle on the organisation's own domain: @yourcharity.org.uk is a verified handle in itself, and it tells a donor the account is really yours.
- A bio that says what you do, for whom, and where, with the registered charity number if you have one.
- A pinned post with the current appeal and the link page.
- The feeds and starter packs for your cause and your area. Ask into them, and make a pack of the organisations you work alongside. The starter packs guide covers how.
What to post
What the money did, in the words of someone it helped, with their permission. What a volunteer did on Tuesday. The number that changed this month, with the one line that explains it. A picture from the work with alt text that says what is happening in it. A thread for the annual report, one finding per post, which is how more people will read it than ever open the PDF. Some posts that do well for small charities: "Here is what a £10 gift bought this week"; the thank-you to a named partner; the question to supporters they can answer in a word; the story from five years ago and where that person is now.
Campaign weeks
An appeal, an awareness week, a fundraiser: each is a campaign, planned while there is time and posted while there is none. The Planner groups a campaign's posts, schedules them at measured hours at least 45 minutes apart, and reports on the campaign as one thing when it ends: reach, engagement, and clicks per post through tracked links. That report is the answer to "did the week work?", and it is the thing to put in front of the board.
Several people posting
A comms lead, a fundraiser and a volunteer all have things to post, and none of them should be able to post the wrong thing under the charity's name. On Studio, a Writer drafts posts and replies and sends them for approval; an Approver says yes or asks for a change; a Writer's post never goes out without an Approver's yes. Five seats, and every approval is logged, so the question of who posted what has an answer.
When to post
When supporters are around, which is measured from your own posts, not taken from a chart. Each post's first day is counted against the hour it went out, on your clock. A charity whose supporters are retired may find a mid-morning hour; one whose supporters are students may not; the figures say which is yours. The best time to post guide explains the measurement.
Hashtags and feeds
One or two on the first post: the cause, and the awareness week's own tag when there is one. Updrift's hashtag table shows which of yours beat your usual. The hashtags guide covers how feeds pick them up.
Donations and the link page
Every account gets a link page on updrift.link, free: the donation page, the volunteer form, the newsletter, the shop, with a click count per link. On a paid plan a link in a scheduled post is a tracked short link, so the report says which post sent people to give. Updrift counts the clicks; the giving platform counts the gifts.
Tracking free
For one account on the Free plan: followers by the hour, each post's first day, which posts moved people and who reposted them, the top line of What works, the link page with clicks per link, and a recap each morning that a colleague can read without opening a dashboard. Nothing is posted or liked on your behalf on Free. The business page covers the same ground for a company.
What a paid plan adds
- Duo, £7 a month: the Planner for two accounts, a campaign with a report, tracked links per post, and the Inbox answered in place.
- Studio, £12 a month: five accounts, five seats with a Writer whose post waits for an Approver, and a campaign month loaded from a CSV.
- Every paid plan is 7 days free with a card; Duo is £7 a month for two accounts and the Planner, Studio £12 for five and a team. All the plans.
See your own figures, free.
Followers by the hour, the posts that landed, your best hours and how your hashtags do. One account, no card, for good.
The Planner, the Inbox and the full What works report come with a paid plan, 7 days free. See the plans.