As a nonprofit fundraiser, you know that consistent donations are key to advancing your mission. Your nonprofit needs a concrete and strategic way to reach your supporters with your donation requests throughout the year. You likely already use tools like email and social media as part of your digital fundraising strategy, but there is an innovative tool you may be missing: text messaging.

Text-to-give fundraising offers nonprofits a convenient and effective way to engage donors and raise funds to support their missions. If your nonprofit hasn’t used text-to-give yet, it’s time to open up another revenue stream by tapping into this unmatched fundraising and communication tool.

An omnichannel strategy including text-to-give is the best way to achieve fundraising success. In this guide, we’ll cover the top five benefits of text-to-give fundraising, highlighting exactly why your organization needs to add text-to-give to its digital fundraising toolkit.

1. High open rate

When you’re operating under tight deadlines, you need a way to reliably reach your supporters and encourage them to act at a moment’s notice. For example, a disaster relief organization might seek donations that go directly toward recovery from a hurricane or other catastrophic event. Sending a text message at this important time can not only increase donations but can also quickly and easily keep your supporters informed of what your organization is doing to help.

Text messages have a 99% open rate and a 90% read rate within just three minutes of sending. Email, on the other hand, has only a 20% open rate. While emails are important for urgent appeals and allow you to share a longer message, there is a chance that they could get lost in cluttered inboxes, or even land in the junk or spam folder. Since text-to-give has such a high open rate, your organization won’t have to worry about recipients not seeing your messages.

To best engage your supporters and donors, keep these best practices in mind:

  • Vary your texts: Don’t only send donation requests, as this can lead to fatigue. Instead, mix up your text messaging strategy with updates about your nonprofit, event information, educational texts about the important work you’re doing in the community, and more.
  • Use compelling subject lines: Make them brief yet captivating to grab your supporters’ attention and encourage them to click.
  • Choose the right timing: Supporters will be more likely to open your texts during their lunch break or after work. Send your texts at appropriate times that make sense for your donor base.

To fully take advantage of text-to-give’s high open rate, it’s important that you consistently create inspiring messaging campaigns that resonate with supporters and encourage them to stay opted into hearing from your organization.

2. Convenience

Donors don’t have to be sitting at a computer to give! All they need is a phone to contribute anytime, anywhere. Since people spend an average of five to six hours per day on their phones, connecting with them where they are will make it easier for them to contribute to your fundraising goals. In fact, according to 360MatchPro, mobile users make up roughly 33% of donation transactions.

User experience is so important for the donation process, and can also help reduce your team’s workload. To make your text-to-give experience as seamless as possible for your supporters and your team, you need the right text fundraising technology.

There are key features for text-to-give fundraising success that nonprofits should leverage: Look for software with the following features:

  • Automation
  • Segmentation
  • Fast messaging speeds
  • Security
  • Data reporting and analytics
  • Nonprofit integrations
  • AI-enhanced message composer

Ensure that your site or donation landing pages are mobile responsive. By appealing to mobile supporters, you can bring in more donations over time.

3. Expanded reach

Did you know that 97% of Americans own a cell phone? Your nonprofit could easily grow its reach by targeting mobile users. You’ll need to effectively market your text-to-give campaign and spread the word about your mission and fundraising efforts, which is easy to do because everyone has a cellphone, typically within arms reach.

By implementing these simple strategies, you can increase donations and amplify your nonprofit’s impact:

  • Create a text-to-give landing page on your mobile-responsive website.
  • Post engaging graphics, videos, and photos on social media related to your text-to-give campaign (don’t forget to include your keyword and shortcode!).
  • Spotlight your text-to-give campaign in your email newsletter.

Remember that nonprofits aren’t as strictly subject to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) as for-profit businesses, meaning that your organization only needs implicit consent to opt-in supporters to your campaign. This means that donors who gave their phone number to your organization through your donation or event registration page can be opted into your text-to-give campaign.

To maintain trust with your subscriber list, be sure to provide a clear option for your supporters to opt out. The text message platform you partner with should be well-versed in the legalities and compliance for nonprofit organizations and guide you to ensure your text-to-give campaign is TCPA compliant.

4. Increased giving during fundraising events

You can pair text-to-give with any other fundraising event to maximize pre-event giving, as well as increase donations and engagement during the event itself.

To pair text-to-give with your next fundraising event, there are a few simple things you can do to make it a success:

  • Advertise this giving option on your mobile-optimized event landing page.
  • Display your SMS short code and keyword at the event itself so supporters can text-to-give.
  • Host a competition and award the donors who give the most via text-to-give with a special prize, branded merchandise, or a lunch with your nonprofit’s leaders.

For example, you might host an auction and create a text-to-give campaign so supporters who can’t attend or who aren’t interested in bidding can still contribute to your fundraising success. Or, if you host a run, walk, or ride event, you can use text-to-give to send donation asks with a hyperlink that subscribers can share with their friends and family.

5. Greater sense of personal connection

Text messaging is much more personal than other forms of communication, making it the perfect tool to cultivate strong supporter relationships and consistent donations that you can count on year after year.

To personalize your texts in your campaign, Tatango’s nonprofit text messaging guide recommends these strategies:

  • Use your donors’ first name in the greeting.
  • Reference personal details, like their volunteer or event attendance history or donation history.
  • Segment your messages based on donors’ average donation amount, donation frequency, donation recency, interests, demographics, and more.

Using personalization in your text-to-give campaign strengthens your nonprofit-donor relationships. For donation asks, personalizing your messages can help inspire recurring giving and establish a predictable donation pipeline for your nonprofit.

Wrapping Up

Running a text-to-give campaign is a powerful way to elevate your giving and relationship-building. To get started with text-to-give, make sure you use a comprehensive text-to-give platform. This will streamline your campaign planning and execution so your nonprofit has more time to focus on creating inspiring texts.