People want to give back to their communities. In fact, their demand led to a 10.4% increase in the number of nonprofit organizations registered with the IRS from 2005 to 2015. Industry growth is only expected to continue. In response, nonprofits are looking for ways to attract donors—and service recipients—in an already-saturated market. Enter SMS for nonprofits.
An SMS for nonprofit platform empowers organizations to send, receive, and organize thousands of texts. With its powerful features, nonprofit teams can quickly connect with team members, volunteers, business partners, donors, and recipients or patrons.
So how exactly can your nonprofit use SMS? We’ve rounded up 3 top use cases.
Raising Money with SMS Fundraising Campaigns
Your nonprofit probably focuses on fundraising. But it can be hard to get people’s attention, especially when they’re receiving so much content from other businesses. With a 98% open rate and average response time of 90 seconds, SMS fundraising can help your nonprofit cut through the noise and get results.
Your teams can use certain tools to increase your SMS fundraising campaign’s efficiency. For example, SMS fundraising drip campaigns empower team members to create a series of templated texts that the platform sends to a list of recipients on a schedule. Team members can leave space for custom fields; the platform uses merge tokens to insert this personalized information into each text as it is sent.
An SMS template might look like this:
Hi there, {{donor first name}}, thanks for signing up to hear more about Lakes Region Zoo’s Fall FUNdraiser! We’ll be texting you once a week with a fun fact about {{indicated animal of interest}}. If you like what you learn, please head to our website to show your appreciation. Text STOP to stop receiving texts.
Your team can use SMS fundraising campaigns to send both engaging content that inspires donations and also notifications regarding other fundraising opportunities. Be sure to use a business texting platform that simplifies the opt-in and opt-out process for contacts. Your organization needs to remain compliant with local and federal guidelines while offering a frictionless SMS experience.
Streamlining the Day-To-Day with Operations SMS
Your daily operations are probably complex. If you’re like most nonprofits, your core team has to communicate with volunteers, donors, contractors, and business partners. This is a lot of communication for any core team, and there’s a good chance that you’re working with a smaller group of people than most for-profit businesses.
Nonprofit SMS simplifies communications. A shared inbox allows all of your core team members to see each incoming text. This way, no messages slip through the cracks. Contractors and volunteers don’t have to download any new messaging apps; they can simply text your SMS number. Offering a convenient communication channel may even increase your volunteer retention rate, encouraging them to connect with you when or if they ever encounter any problems.
Your teams can use SMS for nonprofits to chat with:
- Contractors, answering questions and providing instructions
- Volunteers, managing scheduling and letting them know your needs
- Donors, keeping them up to date and in the loop with your team
- Patrons or service recipients, informing them about your services and other opportunities
SMS for nonprofits helps your teams manage day-to-day challenges with staff members, partners, and patrons with ease.
Managing Events with SMS
Events are probably one of the biggest fundraising opportunities for your organization. They’re also great publicity. But managing an event takes serious work—especially if you’re working with a distributed team. It can be difficult to handle all of the communications involved in both the pre-event and during-event stages.
SMS for nonprofits makes it a lot easier to keep events in check. By setting up two SMS inboxes—one for event operations and the other for patron and donor engagement—your teams can more easily separate texts from the two groups. Team members can use SMS to both send and receive event-related information or questions.
Your teams can use nonprofit SMS to:
- Publicize your event
- Answer questions about your event
- Send event reminders to attendees
- Connect with contractors, volunteers, and other team members on event day
- Let attendees know about event-day changes
- Follow-up with attendees through feedback and review requests
- Send post-event SMS fundraising solicitations
Nonprofit SMS is an all-in-one communications hub that will help your team streamline event day better than ever before.
Want to try SMS for nonprofits? Talk to our team about special pricing opportunities.
