10 Tips for a Successful Charity Stream

Peer-to-peer fundraising is looking a bit different these days. Millions of people have gone virtual to raise money for their favorite charity.

Twitch, one of the most popular streaming platforms, is averaging 15 million users per day—making it a powerful online fundraising tool.

From gamers playing their favorite games to chefs cooking up their favorite dishes or artists using their platform to create, streamers have raised more than $350,000 to help Starlight Children’s Foundation. This incredible support has allowed Starlight to deliver happiness to hospitalized kids across the country. Want to host a successful charity stream? Check out these tips from Starlight streamers:

Have fun and be genuine!

• Educate yourself and fully commit to the cause, learn everything you can about every part of the charity, and always be YOURSELF! What you put into it you will get in return always. If you commit and believe in your community and always be yourself it will come off genuine and natural.
  —chefsteve330.

• A charity stream is like any other stream, it depends on your energy and enthusiasm. If you're having fun and really appreciate the charity you're fundraising for, your viewers will see that and be drawn in to support the cause with you.
  —Stephneee_Plz

• Don’t let the numbers bring you down. If you can, turn off the viewer count when you are streaming and focus on having fun. You will be much happier once you have the counter turned off.
  —SEAZ_SDW

Make it an event! Pre-promote on social media.

• I really enjoy switching around my layouts, making cool graphics, and coming up with really dope incentives to draw people in and, ultimately, to encourage them to donate!It also helps you with building hype on social media and in your streams if you start advertising it with cool graphics before the event even begins.
  —sistakaren

Use Incentives; monetary & non-monetary

• There's no way around the fact that charity streams are generally about money, and that can feel exclusionary to people who may not have funds to contribute. To make your event accessible and fun for all of your community, queue up special channel point rewards or have celebrations for the whole community at certain milestones.
  —Stephneee_Plz

• Utilizing polls is a fun way for your donors to feel even more engaged in the decision making for rewards & goals reached! Like you can let your donors decide which game to play next.
  —NachoPandaa

• You don't need to have big expensive giveaways and prizes, sometimes something simple but funny is a really good incentive! When I averaged 20 people, I raised $1000 for Starlight and what I did was eat a jalapeno, do karaoke and alter the game I was playing. For example, maybe it's a FPS and I have to drop my guns, or play with only x, y or z gun. Or maybe It's an MMO and you haveto level a character.
  —CelHeals

Get the team together!

• As a team leader, what’s very important, is being sure to share in each other’s milestones! Hold viewing parties to watch the homies together, create social media threads to keep communities engaged, and be as present as much as you can! Sharing and hyping milestones keeps the energy going through everyone; Leader, Members, and Community!
  —zja2damax

Use Tiltify or Streamlabs to Collect Donations

• Don't go directly through your donations for charity streaming because Paypal fees take away from the money you can donate, and it puts you more at risk on your end for chargebacks and validity.
  —NachoPandaa

And remember...

• It’s never about YOU or how big or small of a streamer you are, or how much you raise, $1 or a million dollars. There is no competition between any of us. We are all part of the same team and it’s up to us all to be the change and make a difference and stand up together for whatever cause it may be because community matters!
  —chefsteve330

Want to stream for Starlight? Sign up today and check out our resource page to make your stream extra special with custom overlays, photos and videos.