There are more ways to solicit donations, recruit volunteers and spread the word about your organization than ever before. While non-profit organizations are still holding walk-a-thons and bake sales—although the latter has been in decline, due to food allergies and liability issues—the emergence of social marketing and online networking means it’s far easier to reach much wider audiences.

Online fundraising tools like GlobalGiving and ChipIn make it easy for charities to solicit donations right on their websites. No custom programming needed! Facebook and Twitter allow non-profits to gain followers and friends to help publicize their events and needs in a flash. Facebook even helps with Causes, which allows fundraisers to ask for donations from their friends and contacts. It’s good for finding volunteers, too.

Dozens of other sites have popped up to help non-profits publicize their missions and raise money. But before you jump in the social marketing pool, the first thing to do is ask yourself a couple of questions on behalf of your NPO:

1. How Well do I Know my Organization?
2. How Well can I Communicate my Organization’s Brand?

Before you take advantage of the remarkable tools that now exist for marketing through social media (in other words, social marketing), make sure you’re ready. That means knowing your organization inside and out—and communicating the brand quickly and clearly.

Do you Know Yourself?
You may think no one knows your non-profit better than you. But can you put it into meaningful words? Can you express your best-fit client, your ultimate goal and your organization’s place in your community? What are the strengths of the organization, and where do you need help? What skills are you looking for in volunteers? Knowing your organization backwards and forwards makes it easier to make connections with people who can make a difference to your organization.

Communicating the Brand
Think in terms of what your organization does to change something that’s wrong in the world—that’s the brand. It’s what drives the organization, what makes it different from others—and what would be lost if it didn’t exist. Every person involved must speak about the brand in the same way in order for it to be most effective. A well-written tagline helps.

Once you know the organization and the brand, then set up a Twitter account, write blog posts, share them on Facebook and send targeted emails. Social marketing is all about educating your volunteers, fans, supporters and followers about what you’re doing and how they can help you affect change.

Developing a strong presence on social media outlets is a proven marketing tool for businesses and non profit organizations. Increasing awareness for your cause, making it easier for supporters to donate time and money, and promoting events are just a few ways that Facebook and Twitter are used successfully by non profits every day.

And now, social media savvy non profits have an advantage—by spreading the word quickly, they can compete for cash through America’s Giving Challenge, a daily giveaway that rewards causes with the highest number of donations each day through November 6, 2009.

Non profits that connect with supporters through a regularly-updated website, blog, email newsletters, and on social media sites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter have already built the infrastructure that allows them to take advantage of a contest like this. Causes was built on Facebook, with the sole purpose of putting power, in the form of dollars, in the hands of the people. Every 24 hours, whichever charity gets the most donations—of any amount—gets $1,000. Second highest number gets $500 each day.

The grand prize for the contest awards $50,000 to the non profit that gets the highest number of individual donations. Second prize is $25,000, and $10,000 goes to each of the next five causes.

It’s easy to sign up your cause, donate to a cause, and see how the contest is going. (Today’s leader is Overseas China Education Foundation, with 101 donations.) Set a goal for your organization to gather 100, 150, or 200 small donations, and you could be in the running for the $1,000 daily prize. And the way social marketing works, you could soon see thousands of donations for your cause, along with increased awareness, more volunteers, and engaged supporters!