Text-to-donate, also known as text-to-give, has risen in popularity among nonprofits—and for good reason. As one of the easiest ways to boost revenue and connect with your supporters, text-to-donate can support your fundraising goals by simplifying the entire donation experience. After subscribing to receive your text messages, supporters can submit a donation in just a few moments right from the palm of their hand.
Text-to-give isn’t just easier on your donors’ end. With the right text messaging provider, you can streamline the entire setup and execution process, giving your nonprofit more time to advance its mission and build strong donor relationships. Once your text fundraising campaign is up and running, you can send donation solicitations, fundraising campaign updates, and thank-you messages with ease.
If you’re looking to revamp your entire fundraising strategy—and lessen your staff’s administrative burden—text-to-donate can help you reliably reach your supporters and motivate them to give. As you consider whether text-to-give is the right next step for your organization, we’ll go over these top benefits to keep in mind:
- It’s convenient for donors
- It can grow your nonprofit’s reach
- It can be paired with any fundraising event
- It requires little effort with the right fundraising platform
Your donors already spend a lot of their time on their mobile devices. Rather than trying to steal their attention away, use this opportunity to reach them where they are with text-to-donate appeals. Let’s dive into the many pros this fundraising strategy has to offer.
It’s convenient for donors
The entire donation process, from subscribing to your text messaging campaign to acting on your donation appeals, is streamlined and convenient for supporters, requiring very little effort on their end. This makes it easy to give the first time and increases the chances of supporters donating again.
Here’s how text-to-donate works from your supporters’ perspective:
- Donors will text your keyword (e.g. GIVE) to your designated short code (e.g. 40333) or long code.
- Donors will receive text donation appeals from your organization with a mobile-friendly link to your donation page.
- Donors will feel inspired to donate and will click on your link to contribute.
- Donors will be taken directly to your donation form and can fill out their donation amount and billing information.
As long as donors have their phone in hand, they can donate to your organization anywhere, at any time. This will lead to a significant boost in fundraising, enabling your nonprofit to surpass its fundraising goals and push its mission forward. In fact, 360MatchPro reports that mobile users made up 33% of online donation transactions last year. By offering this inherently user-friendly donation option for mobile users, your nonprofit will be more likely to establish a reliable donation pipeline.
It can grow your nonprofit’s reach.
More and more people have smartphones, and supporters check their phones for text messages more than ever. Studies estimate that 85% of Americans have a smartphone and the average American spends over three hours a day on the phone. With so many mobile users, this is a prime opportunity for your nonprofit to expand its audience and make it a simple and rewarding process to connect with your nonprofit.
Plus, your nonprofit can reliably reach mobile users with your text donation appeals. Text messages have a 99% open rate and 90% read rate within just three minutes of sending, ensuring that your donors receive your requests and reminders and are likely to read them. This is especially useful when you’re running a fundraising campaign with a tight deadline and need to get through to your supporters quickly and efficiently.
Compare this with email marketing, which has a 20% open rate on average and is much more likely to get lost within donors’ cluttered inboxes or land in their junk folder. As a result, you’d be missing out on a significant opportunity to build relationships with donors, explain the impact of their donations, and boost your retention rate. When you send text-to-donate requests, your nonprofit is more likely to see your fundraising numbers grow.
It can be paired with any fundraising event
Let’s say your organization is hosting a virtual auction. Rather than waiting until the event day to bring in donations, you can kickstart your fundraising progress by pairing your event with a text-to-donate campaign. Text-to-donate can help you drive fundraising results and supporter engagement, so donors feel more connected to your cause and are even more excited to attend your event.
For example, in your text messages, you can offer supporters a sneak peak of the item catalog to build hype for your auction event, and then explain the reason you are fundraising and what your overall goal is. Then, you can request that they submit a donation ahead of time so you can already be on your way to reaching your fundraising goal.
Text message appeals are also a helpful option if donors can’t attend your event. Rather than missing out on their key support, you can create a new revenue stream to boost your fundraising numbers. Plus, you can allow donors to text-to-donate during your event, especially as the fundraising deadline gets closer, for even greater results.
Many higher education institutions use text-to-give on giving days to complement their existing email, social media, and direct mail fundraising efforts. Just like these colleges and universities, your nonprofit can open up an additional revenue opportunity with text-to-donate on Giving Tuesday and important fundraising deadlines to maximize fundraising success.
It requires little effort with the right fundraising platform
Comprehensive text-to-donate software can help your nonprofit run campaigns with ease. According to Tatango’s guide to nonprofit text messaging, your nonprofit should work with an experienced fundraising partner with the following features:
- Fast messaging speeds. Your organization should be able to reliably reach supporters within moments of sending your messages, no matter the scale of your nonprofit. Look for a text-to-donate service that has a high messages per second rate so you can send time-sensitive appeals, and last-minute event updates to thousands of supporters at a time without delay.
- Segmentation opportunities. Segmenting your contacts into groups based on similar characteristics makes your text messages more personalized and therefore likely to motivate donors to give. Work with a text-to-give partner that provides intuitive segmentation capabilities so you can create audience subgroups based on factors like donation frequency, recency, and amount, location, and recency of opting into your campaign.
- Security components. Your text provider will be a hub to sensitive donor and nonprofit information. To prevent data leaks from happening, you’ll need a text messaging provider that prioritizes secure login and sending so you can keep your information safe.
You’ll also want to work with a partner that has a thorough understanding of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and will ensure your text-to-donate campaign is compliant so you won’t have to pay any unnecessary fees.
Fundraising is central to your nonprofit’s operations, and you need a reliable way to reach supporters and boost revenue. With text-to-donate, you’ll be in great shape to effectively motivate donors to give and establish a consistent revenue stream to expand your budget. Do your research to find a text-to-donate provider that will provide the support you need to make your text-to-donate campaign a success. Good luck!