Social media is quickly becoming one of the most important and effective avenues for non-profit organizations. Whether they’re raising awareness about a vital issue, soliciting donations from individuals, or recruiting volunteers for an upcoming event, non-profits are increasingly turning to online social networks to get the job done. According to recent market research, the amount of the average social media monetary donation increased 64 percent between 2010 and 2012. A simple “Like” on Facebook can connect a non-profit’s cause to countless potential stakeholders, dramatically increasing public engagement with just a small, initial push. Many organizations have seen great success using these and other tried-and-true concepts of social media integration. Here are some recent winners in the field.

Diabetes Hands Foundation

Between 2010 and 2011, the Diabetes Hands Foundation used a mobile app platform to gather vital medical data from over 10,000 individuals through the Big Blue Test program. Users either went online to BigBlueTest.org or used an iPhone app to determine the effects of 14 minutes of exercise on blood sugar levels. The incredible amount of resulting participation from the diabetic community, as well as some non-diabetic participants used to establish a baseline, served as the foundation for a grant from Roche Diabetes Care. The Big Blue Test relied on stakeholders sharing the app with others and spreading the accompanying video to over 200,000 viewers, ultimately generating 50,000 dollars in diabetes aid worldwide.

Amnesty International

This noted human rights organization exploded onto the social media activism scene in 2010 with a wildly successful multimedia fundraising campaign. This helped them buy a full-page ad in two major London-area newspapers, as well as an accompanying billboard on a truck driving around the city. This campaign was in protest of the Royal Dutch Shell corporation and its activities in the Niger Delta, which Amnesty International called environmentally unjust. Starting with a simple blog as a call to action, the campaign helped stakeholders share the message via Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and many other sites, and gave them an immediate pathway to donation. In just three weeks, Amnesty International generated 30,000 pounds (45,000+ dollars) from this campaign.

CARE International

In 2012 alone, CARE International facilitated education and professional training for 2.3 million individuals around the world. A significant part of the organization’s donations and volunteer participation comes from online activity. CARE maintains a library of topical blogs and YouTube videos promoting their many causes via the CARE Connect program. Users can customize the information they receive from CARE through a persistent online community connected to multiple social network platforms, ensuring engagement and significantly increasingly the likelihood of donation by linking users to the causes they care about most.

charity:water

This hands-on non-profit organization gathered all the funds necessary to fly their staff to rural Ethiopia and drill wells for potable water by using a single, Twitter-based fundraising event. The 2009 Twestival used Twitter to promote the event and solicit donations in 202 cities around the world. charity:water tweeted compelling facts about the clean water crisis, maintained live updates about their progress with pictures and videos, and helped users see how much money was being raised in each city. The campaign pulled in more than 250,000 dollars in small donations.

Invisible Children

One of the most publicized (and occasionally controversial) non-profit social media campaigns in recent memory is the KONY2012 campaign by Invisible Children. Within 24 hours of releasing the YouTube video at the center of the project, three of the top ten trending topics on Twitter were related to KONY2012 and the video generated 100 million views in a single week. This consistently generates donations and new stakeholders for Invisible Children, and it even inspired an official resolution by the United States Congress in support of the Ugandan effort to defeat the warlord Joseph Kony.