SMS Messaging Offers Opportunity for Fundraising
Is your charity taking advantage of mobile fundraising? A report from ThirdSector indicates 55% of charities aren’t doing so, which creates a huge opportunity for those that do. In the UK, almost three quarters of the population, 72%, use smartphones. And one of the most active donating demographics, 54 to 65, are using smartphones in ever greater numbers. Almost 55% of the older Brits are becoming tech savvy and mobile.
There are many mobile strategies available, but one of the most effective is SMS messaging. SMS giving is probably the most well known use of SMS for charity fundraising. But it’s difficult to do except for the largest organisations. It requires coordination with the network providers to collect money on behalf of the charity. Also the charity doesn’t always receive a record of the numbers who donated, and there is no way to track how the donations were made. Did they come from the radio or TV advert? Did the donor see an online ad? There’s just no way to know without more information.
So while SMS giving can be an effective way to gather donations for certain organisations, it doesn’t help create a relationship between the charity and the donor. But you can use standard SMS messaging to engage your existing donor database. You can also create campaigns to grow your donor list, and then engage them in all your fundraising efforts.
And that’s another thing that most charities don’t do according to the ThirdSector report. Over 63% of charities have not integrated their fundraising efforts across all their different channels. Fortunately, SMS messaging is so easy to get started, simple to integrate into applications, and to track responses.
If you’re one of the charities in the UK that hasn’t started using mobile for fundraising, get in touch with us to find out how you can get started. Just grab us on live chat anytime, email or call to see how easy it can be to help your cause raise funds using SMS messaging.
You can also pick up some great ideas from our Business Sector Report on Not-For-Profit Organisations.
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