Effective text fundraising campaigns require more than just a catchy keyword and a compelling message. The most successful initiatives integrate several fundraising strategies to create a well-rounded campaign that extends across multiple platforms—including your nonprofit’s website.
Your website will play a central role in your text fundraising campaign, helping you accept donations and provide crucial donor follow-up to strengthen relationships. This guide explores the following tips to prepare your website for your next text campaign:
- Ensure your donation page is mobile-friendly.
- Create a text-to-give information page.
- Refresh your website’s stories.
- Provide campaign updates through your blog.
A top-tier nonprofit website boosts your organization’s credibility, encouraging donors to trust your text fundraising campaign and continue their support for the long term. These tips help ensure your website can effectively support your text fundraising goals to drive reliable supporter engagement.
1. Ensure your donation page is mobile-friendly.
You’ll need a user-friendly, mobile-optimized online donation form to give donors an easy way to contribute using their mobile devices. Take the following steps to prepare your giving page to support your text fundraising campaign:
- Ensure your site has a responsive design. If you use a popular content management system (CMS) like WordPress, most themes are responsive by default. However, if your website is custom-built, you should view it in the mobile format to ensure that all site elements adjust seamlessly to mobile screens.
- Review your page load speed. The probability that a visitor will bounce from your website increases by 32% as page load speeds go from one to three seconds. Reduce unused code, optimize images, and use browser caching to improve your donation page load speed.
- Size tap targets appropriately. Buttons, links, menu items, and other tap targets should be large and clear enough to be touched on a phone screen.
Test your donation page using a tool like PageSpeed Insights or Lighthouse to assess load speed and performance. In addition, have your nonprofit’s staff members manually test the page using their mobile devices to ensure the form works properly ahead of your text-to-give initiative.
2. Create a text-to-give information page.
Some supporters may not be familiar with text fundraising, so create an information page on your website to share with your audience and spread awareness of your campaign. Include the following information on your landing page:
- Terms or acronyms donors may not be familiar with. “Text fundraising,” “text-to-give,” and “SMS marketing” are all examples of terms that nonprofit donors may not have heard before. Provide clear definitions for these terms so supporters know what you’re referring to.
- How the process works and how donations are collected. Describe the steps of the text fundraising process, including how supporters can opt-in to receive texts, what types of messages your nonprofit sends, and how donors can use the links in your messages to submit donations.
- What happens after donations are sent. Explain what happens after donors give using your online donation form. Transparency is key. What will your nonprofit use the gifts for? Will you support a specific project or program, or use gifts to fund general operating costs? Giving supporters a clear idea of the campaign’s purpose will assure them that you’ll use their gifts effectively to support your mission.
Share a link to your text fundraising information page via social media and email so all supporters can access the need-to-know information.
3. Refresh your website’s stories.
Incorporating storytelling into your text fundraising campaigns can give supporters the extra emotional push they may need to decide to donate. A text with a story about a beneficiary is much more compelling than a simple message saying “Give to our campaign!”
You can pull stories that already exist on your nonprofit’s website to support your campaign. For example, your website may have inspirational stories in the form of:
- Testimonials
- Blog posts
- Case studies
These can all be helpful additions to your text storytelling. For example, let’s say you have a testimonial from a beneficiary who received support from your nonprofit’s free food pantry. You can include a direct quote and photo from the testimonial in your text message outreach to show potential donors the real impact their gifts can have.
To prepare your stories, refresh them on your website as needed by conducting regular maintenance. Kanopi’s website maintenance guide recommends ensuring your content is as accessible as possible by adding alternative text to images, including captions with videos, using colors with sufficient color contrast, and implementing other accessibility features. In addition, confirm that your stories have a consistent tone and style, and ensure all stories are branded to your nonprofit.
4. Provide campaign updates through your blog.
Supporters will want to know the results of your text-to-give campaign, especially if they donated their hard-earned funds to support the initiative. Use your website’s blog to share campaign updates, such as:
- Total donations raised so far
- How much you have left to go before reaching your goal
- Largest donations raised
- Number of donors participating
In addition to campaign updates, you can also use your blog to thank donors for their participation and share impact stories describing how donors’ generosity helped individuals in need. eCardWidget’s guide to thanking donors recommends “centering” donors in your appreciation messages: “Rather than focusing purely on your organization’s accomplishments, emphasize how their contributions made those achievements possible.”
For example, you could create a blog post describing how text fundraising donations enabled your organization to rescue an additional 30 animals in need of new homes. Center donors’ contributions by saying, “Your generous text donations saved 30 local pets, giving them the chance to find new families in our community.”
Incorporate additional online donor stewardship elements, such as a digital donor wall and thank-you videos, to create a well-rounded appreciation strategy that encourages donor retention.
A successful text fundraising campaign combines informative communications, compelling storytelling, and clear impact reporting to provide the best possible experience for your supporters. By using your website to support your text fundraising campaign, you can create a holistic fundraising process and recruit new and recurring donors to support the initiative.
