Text Fundraising for Your Year-End Campaign

As your nonprofit plans its year-end campaign, consider ways to make donating easy for your supporters. Sure, you could send a direct mail appeal with a self-addressed envelope to collect checks. However, this doesn’t work for all donors. For instance, many people don’t have checks or prefer to give with debit or credit cards. Because of this, they probably won’t respond to your appeal. Text fundraising offers donors a way to give online for those who don’t want to give through the mail. Here’s how to integrate text fundraising into your year-end campaign strategy.

Pick your text fundraising tools

If you’re not already using Qgiv for text fundraising, the first step you should take is to determine which text fundraising tools you want to use. Qgiv offers two options. Text-to-donate is a form-based mobile fundraising method. Donors initiate a gift via text before visiting a mobile form to complete their donation. The text-to-give option is carrier-based. Donors are billed the donation amount on their phone bill. Then, donations are paid to your organization from the Mobile Giving Foundation. Both of these options let donors make a one-time or recurring donation.

Integrate text fundraising into year-end communications

If you’ve already built a text communication list from supporters who’ve opted to receive text messages, use Qgiv’s outbound messaging tool to craft a text appeal and text the link to your donation form to your supporters.

To reach donors who haven’t opted in to text messages, you can still convince them to give via text in your direct mail appeals. This can be as simple as sending out an inexpensive year-end fundraising postcard. Postcards are known for being an inexpensive way to reach out to people. They don’t need to be opened for the message to be read, and they can be great options for providing a simple set of instructions. This communication method is best for early on in your year-end campaign. You’re not making a lengthy emotional appeal. But you can make an effective ask using brief text and an eye-catching image. When you ask for support, give your supporters instructions on how to give via text. With Qgiv’s tools, the donation process can be broken down into a couple easy steps.

If using text-to-donate

• Text [keyword] to 50155
• We’ll send a link
• Click it and complete the form to make your gift

If using text-to-give

• Text [keyword] to [your assigned Mobile Giving Foundation shortcode] *
• Then, text your zip code to confirm your gift
• The donation amount will appear on your next phone bill

*Not sure what your shortcode is? We’re here to help! Contact the Qgiv support team.

Make sure you include a statement that text message and data rates may apply.

In a longer appeal letter, offer text fundraising as a method for giving quickly and easily. You don’t want to provide information about every giving method under the sun because it may overwhelm your donors. However, you can easily let them know that giving via text is available to them. Include a self-addressed envelope for those intent to pay by check. But tie in text fundraising and provide instructions on how to do so. The benefit of sharing this option in your appeal letter is that you can show donors how to make this kind of gift with pictures. Send the letter to supporters who haven’t made their gift yet as a follow up to your text fundraising postcard closer to the end of your campaign.

Mention text fundraising on social media

The last three days of December are huge for nonprofits in terms of received donations. However, because of this, that period is usually followed by a lot of manual processing of checks donors hustled to send before the January 1 charitable exemption deadline. Many donors may miss this deadline by not getting their check in the mail in December. Your nonprofit can’t claim the gift was received in December if it has a January postmark.

Text fundraising is a great way to help your donors with their last-minute giving. They don’t have to worry about an envelope in the mail because they can give from their phones and get their receipt moments after they make their gift. Remind them of this, then provide instructions on social media as a final push for supporters and visitors to your social media pages. This can be as simple as posting an infographic with giving instructions and letting supporters know the deadline for making gifts for the current calendar year is fast approaching. Pin the post to the top of your page until January 1^st as a constant reminder to supporters to get their gifts in before the deadline.

Conclusion

There are numerous benefits to including text fundraising in your year-end campaign strategy. Your organization can receive gifts quickly with this method. They’ll also manually process fewer check and cash gifts during this busy time. Text fundraising lets donors easily set up recurring donations or make last-minute gifts before January 1^st. Give text fundraising a try this year to give your supporters more options for their year-end giving.

Want to see Qgiv’s text fundraising tools in action? Request a demo.