Nonprofit fundraising can be challenging, with many groups and organizations are vying for the same dollars and for people’s attention and focus. The competition is fierce, with ads and messages flashing across our social media timelines, flooding our inboxes, and calling to us from radio ads and billboards on our commutes.
Convincing people to donate money requires a strong connection between the potential donor and the cause. Instead of promoting a product or service, your nonprofit is presenting a situation and asking for help. The necessary nuance and context will rarely work within a traditional marketing framework. For fundraising, it’s best to reach people directly and share the story behind your mission—this is where SMS messaging will make a big difference.
Your nonprofit connects to people by sending mass text messages, and those messages must stand out from the crowd when they land in your recipients’ inboxes. Compared to other forms of modern communication, SMS messages are remarkably effective. Over 99% of text messages are opened and read. Culturally, many of us ascribe more urgency to text messages than email. While your spam folder might be stuffed and go unnoticed, a red badge on your messaging app is hard to ignore. Did you know text messages have a 209% higher response rate than social media posts or emails? SMS messages can help your nonprofit increase engagement and fundraising.
One movement encouraging donations to nonprofits is Giving Tuesday. This is a global movement to encourage generosity and donations to help worthy causes. To learn more and get the best texting tips and strategies for fundraising success this Giving Tuesday, keep reading.
What Is Giving Tuesday?
Giving Tuesday was launched in 2012 and is run by an independent nonprofit organization with partners in 80 countries. The movement welcomes everyone and aims to inspire and increase generosity worldwide, encouraging donations and support for a wide variety of important projects and causes. The spirit of Giving Tuesday is observed every Tuesday year round, with a focused celebration near the end of the year. Some companies and organizations even offer matching contributions on Giving Tuesday. In 2021, Giving Tuesday took place on November 30.
Giving Tuesday is a wonderful opportunity for nonprofits to boost their fundraising, generate awareness, and increase engagement. The focus is on bringing people together and making fundraising a part of everyday life. Registration or membership fees are not required for participation. And because Giving Tuesday is an open movement, it’s can perfectly integrate with your fundraising plans and text messaging efforts.
SMS Messages for Nonprofits
With so much competition among nonprofits and causes for available funds, keeping up momentum can be tough. Sending a quarterly email isn’t enough. The occasional phone call or billboard will also fail to keep your story and mission fresh in peoples’ minds. Your fundraising efforts thrive on strong relationships with donors, and SMS messaging is the best way to stay current and engaged with your supporters. Small donors are the backbone of many nonprofits, helping organizations grow and expand with a large support base.
4 Text Message Tips to Raise More Money on Giving Tuesday
Through a unified SMS messaging plan, your nonprofit will get the best return on its investment of time and resources. Let’s look at four things your nonprofit can do to ensure a successful Giving Tuesday text message campaign.
1. Include a Call to Action
Your text messages should always include a call to action. With a movement like Giving Tuesday, there’s already a larger context of global fundraising and generosity. Encouraging supporters to give on a specific date or by a specific deadline will generate prompt action. A straightforward donation process is critical for a successful fundraising campaign, and it starts with a clear call to action.
2. Keep It Engaging
Why should someone donate money? Why is your cause urgent? Storytelling is essential to engage your supporters. No matter how vital your organization’s work is, securing donations requires communicating your mission in a way that will resonate with your subscribers. Tell supporters what you need, and make their next steps obvious and easy. Give details about where their money will go and the impact their gift will have.
Partnering with an SMS platform like Tatango ensures your nonprofit’s messages are creative and make donating easy. Shorter SMS texts are perfect for sending reminders, links, and brief updates. With MMS (multimedia messaging service) texts, you can send up to 5,000 characters in a single message and add videos, GIFs, images, and other media to keep your texts interesting and fresh.
3. Make It Personal
Your texts should grab people’s attention and keep them subscribed and looking forward to future messages. Advanced SMS tools like merge tags help you address subscribers by name in text messages. Creating a link between Giving Tuesday donations and a supporter’s name will not only add urgency to the request for a donation, but will also make the messages feel more personal. The stronger a person’s connection to your nonprofit and its cause is, the more likely they’ll continue supporting your organization long after Giving Tuesday. Personalization tools help increase click-through rates and engagement.
4. Integrate Easy, Secure Fundraising Tools
As a nonprofit, keep these two goals in mind for SMS fundraising: make donating as easy as possible and keep data secure. If a link leads a subscriber to a confusing webpage or the donation process requires jumping through hoops, they’re not likely to follow through. A platform like Tatango makes text message fundraising easier with the ability to integrate secure, one-tap donation links in your messages.
Tatango helps to protect your nonprofit with security features like two-factor authentication, secure sending, and automated logout to help keep your subscribers’ data and payment information safe and private. If donating is complicated or data security is in doubt, your fundraising push will be off to a bad start.
Fundraising SMS Messages for Giving Tuesday
As Giving Tuesday approaches, nonprofits without a detailed messaging strategy will struggle. If you follow these tips and work with an experienced mass texting platform like Tatango, your SMS messages will be clear and compelling, which will strengthen your relationships with donors and help you meet your fundraising goals.
To learn more about SMS marketing for nonprofits, contact the experts at Tatango. We’ll help set you up for success this Giving Tuesday and well into the future.
