Content Creation Eats Livestream—Why You Care
Your livestreamer became a content creator.
In the last decade, livestream was king as a powerful tool for fundraisers, revolutionizing how organizations engage with some of their supporters. And of livestreamers, gamers were the king of kings.
According to Michael Wasserman, Co-Founder and CEO of Tiltify, that changed. Your livestream fundraiser is now your fundraising content creator, using livestream sometimes, but more often using pre-recorded and edited content to leverage their followers on a variety of platforms.
The realm of content creation has expanded far beyond the confines of live broadcasts, encompassing a diverse array of formats and platforms, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. From short-form TikTok videos to long-form YouTube content, creators of all ages and backgrounds are leveraging their influence to support causes they care about.
From Stephen Colbert's interactive Dungeons & Dragons Adventure, where viewers shaped the narrative through their contributions prior to the recorded DnD content, to Ryan Trahan's weekly video series, this content is meticulously crafted to engage and entertain audiences. These influencers, often recruited to fundraise by nonprofits, no longer limit themselves to livestream. They create content, edit it, and post it to a variety of platforms, all on your behalf. This is celebrity fundraising at its finest, perhaps finer than it was before.
Shifting Language
The landscape of content creation has undergone a profound transformation, with individuals of all generations embracing the medium as a means of self-expression and community-building. Per Wasserman, “Over 200 million people create content, everyone from Gen Z to Boomers. Those 200 million people speak to billions of people. They appear in all kinds of programs now, from endurance fundraising to bake sales. They leverage content creation in large or mini communities.”
Hyperfocus on livestreaming and gaming can inadvertently exclude potential fundraisers. Forbes published in 2023 its top 50 creator list. Wasserman said, “Interestingly of those seven, only one raised money last year for charity (at least that I know of) by livestreaming gaming related content, and only three by livestreaming at all. The others who fundraised used other types of content and strategy.”
Wasserman continued, “A good example is my co-speaker for a recent webinar, Avi Gandhi. He’s a content creator expert. He said to me, ‘The Avengers from Marvel are mainstream movies (based on comic book characters) …but they (movie producers) don’t market to comic book fans.’ And Avi doesn’t identify as a comic book fan, but he loves Marvel movies. Marvel realized they can reach a much wider audience by not identifying Marvel by the type of content (original comic book fiction). The point he was making is that we have to get away from ‘livestream fundraising’ or ‘gamer fundraising’ and move to content creation as a means to fundraise.”
We in nonprofit got stuck in our org charts and silos and didn’t respond to what was happening in the environment. We now don’t match what is happening in our environment. Content creators cross all silos in our organizations. That one poor sop we call the “livestream fundraiser” is still potentially focused on a small portion of the audience. That person may understand the world has evolved, but in many organizations that person is a lower level employee, without the power to affect a change to an organizational chart and lines of authority. You know what this means? You have to get your Chief Development Officer more online to even have this conversation.
The Numbers
Use these stats to help. Per Wasserman, “Sixty to seventy percent of creators have a following of 1000 to 10,000 people. The average person is gaining influence and they want to use it for your organization. I get calls quite a bit from volunteer fundraisers who want to use Tiltify because they want to fundraise using interactive content tools they have become used to, but this is harder on the traditional peer to peer platform that has been offered to them by the nonprofit.”
He continued, “Livestream raises the most because it’s live and synchronous. Recorded content fundraises at lower amounts over a longer time span, which is typically the greater amount of fundraising in the end.” Wasserman reports an average of $1100 per content creator when excluding fundraisers over $100,000 and at $0.
Want to learn more? Join Michael Wasserman, Founder and CEO of Tiltify, Social Psychologist Otis Fulton, PhD, and Katrina VanHuss, Founder Turnkey For Good discuss content creator fundraising environment, what it means to you and your organization, and what to do about it.
DATES: May 21 and June 18 @ 1PM ET
Reg page: https://www.turnkeyforgood.com/registration-tiltify
