Fundraisers should not rely on Twitter, according to founder of Twestival, Amanda Rose.

She was speaking at civilsociety.co.uk’s Mobile and Digital conference yesterday, and said: “I don’t know anyone who makes money on Twitter, it has to be parlayed with something else.”

In July IT professional Simon Painter launched Giv2.it as a way for Twitter users to donate through the social network.

Speaking to civilsociety.co.uk he said: “She has a point in a way – until I created Giv2.it getting people to donate on Twitter was difficult.”

Since the launch almost 100 users have signed up and 75 charities have received donations totalling about £300.

An online campaign, Tweets for Balls, is now using the platform as its main method of fundraising and is hoping to raise £1,000 by the end of November. So far it has raised £125.

Painter added that, in terms of numbers of users, “Twitter is never going to be as massive as Facebook. I just wanted to make sure that there was an option for those people who wanted to, to donate via Twitter.”

Last month Twotto, a Twitter-based lottery, launched and hopes to raise money for charity through advertising to followers. Once it has 100,000 followers it will start weekly prize draws, based on a fixed 2 per cent of how many people follow the lottery. A randomly-selected follower will receive 1 per cent while the person who recruited the highest number of followers will receive the other 1 per cent to donate to charity. The lottery currently has 433 followers which equates to a prize fund of £4.