In this episode of our Group Thinkers podcast, I had the opportunity to sit down with CEO and Co-Founder of Tiltify Michael Wasserman.
We covered a range of subjects, from gaming to shaved heads to live concerts. But I think the most insightful part of the conversation came from Michael’s thoughts on the many forms of livestream fundraising and how Tiltify is using their new partnership with TikTok to make in-app fundraising accessible to users and content creators.
For those of you who might be unfamiliar with TikTok, the social media app features Donation Stickers, enabled by Tiltify, that creators can use in videos to fundraise for a curated list of nonprofit organizations.
“Content creators can make videos and livestreams where they’ll be able to choose an option to create a sticker, which will be right on their video,” Wasserman said. “Those videos, that are then seen by millions of people, will have a donation button that then goes into an easy flow with our partnership.
“They’ll be able to track amounts raised and do a lot of cool things. And that’s just phase one of what should be a really cool build of tools with a really amazing platform that’s getting visited by 600-700 million people a month now.”
This partnership, paired with Tiltify’s other efforts in livestream fundraising, is helping nonprofit organizations as they are pushed into digital transformation.
The idea of a digital transformation in the nonprofit world used to be a lofty goal that only large organizations could truly achieve. However, this reality rapidly evolved thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tiltify is seeing that firsthand.
“We are working with at least five new charities every day,” Wasserman said. “A lot of people I’ve been talking to for years who’ve been interested in this—and frankly some of them who weren’t—– have come out and said, ‘Hey, that thing you were talking to me about, can we do it sooner?’”
And while the shift to virtual events can be daunting, Wasserman reassures us that it doesn’t have to be a huge production.
For all “The Office” fans out there, Wasserman cites John Krasinski’s “Some Good News” as a great example of effective messaging in a low-production-cost environment.
“There’s no such thing as a mistake on a livestream. People want that real connection of hanging out with you. You don’t have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to do it,” Wasserman said.
Although, due to unfortunate circumstances, nonprofits’ hands are being forced into finding innovative solutions as we all get used to this new normal, I for one can’t wait to see some of the ideas our industry comes up with.
Check out the rest of the interview and additional insights on what Tiltify is doing to help nonprofits during COVID-19 below: