Use SMS Messages to Engage Donors in Fundraising

Raising funds for your charity or non-profit is made simpler with SMS messages. Two-way messaging helps you organize your donors to raise more funds for individual projects and for general funding.

Your donors believe in you. That’s why they contribute to your projects. Their enthusiasm can help you find more donors, raise more funds, and get more people in your communities excited about your work. When you make it fun for them to help, it’s even better.

Every project or activity can be engaging, and fun, when you turn it into a game or contest. Text messaging helps you create that fun environment for fund-raising. You can attract and engage with donors to get them involved in your fundraising goal. Running competitions for prizes and recognition is a fun and productive way to get donors involved.

For example, you can award prizes for donors who capture different levels of investment, create campaigns within their local networks, contribute new fundraising ideas and more. You can also offer some type of annual recognition for donors who reach the highest levels of referral fund-raising, as well as recognition on a project by project basis. The options are only as limited as your imagination!

Here are some examples on how you can use text messaging to engage donors in your fund-raising opportunities.

Gamify Your Fundraising with SMS Messages

SMS messages make it easy to gamify fund-raising. You can announce the program, send promotional texts to keep the game top of mind, feature donors and their fund-raising ideas, offer special prizes and share each donor’s personal status with them.

Here’s how it works.

First, you need to decide on your offer/game strategy. Let’s say you’re funding a project to build a new women’s center for healthcare, counseling, and support with childcare/family services.

Please note: In the conversations below, green represents an automated conversation, yellow represents a 1:1 conversation.

Following is an example message flow to announce the project, attract and engage your donors and reward them for their support.

The above messages are automatically sent as a conversation to all selected donors on your list. If you want to expand your list, it’s simple to send the same message campaign at any point in time.

When donors reply to join the project, the following messages are automatically triggered.

After a week, those donors who haven’t sent in a contest form get the following message. You can automatically send as many reminders as you want, at whatever time schedule you prefer.

When a donor’s contest form is received, the following message flow is automatically sent.

Help Your Donors Successfully Attract Funds

You can also run a set of introductory events, either online or in person, to help donors raise funds, and to help them better understand the projects.

First, you’d announce the event to your donors.

When someone replies asking for help, Amy or one of her team members is immediately alerted by SMS-Magic so that they can start a 1:1 conversation.

Amy just sent a scheduling message. When Rachel schedules a call, she’ll be sent a confirmation message, as well as a reminder for the call.

The Bottom Line

SMS messages give you the chance to have important conversations with your donors, for fundraising and more.

Getting your donors involved in supporting your fund-raising efforts is a great way to deepen your relationship with them, even as you raise more funds. That’s just one option to use text messaging to increase the efficiency and volume of your fund-raising initiatives.