Justin is Funraise's CEO, a co-founder, and a bad-ass, experienced nonprofit fundraiser. Like a true fundraiser-turned-founder, he breaks down the concepts behind Funraise's mission everywhere he can make nonprofits' voices heard.

Text engagement is something ALL nonprofits need to be doing more of.

The data speaks for itself. Texts have a 95% open rate and a 36% click-through rate—that's 🔥!

If you're using SMS just to solicit donations, you're missing out on the real magic of this engagement tool. Texting should be a part of your omnichannel fundraising approach.

Here are a few ways to incorporate texting into your strategy this year:

1. Live-text from the field and include photos to show your donors raw impact.
2. Launch campaigns with mass text announcements and updates along the way.
3. Direct text with your most committed supporters to keep the relationship real.

Try these things and I promise you’ll see a more engaged base of supporters. What other ways are you using SMS today at your nonprofit?

‍Can't listen to the video? Scroll down to read the transcript.

Video Transcript

Okay, so I have like a series of questions I want to ask. Okay. That are probably mostly yes or no, or like needs more explanation of why it's yes or no. Yeah. But I've heard a lot of organizations ask very specifics around like is sms good for this? And so I'm going to go through a handful of those types of scenarios. I mean, as an example like would these questions make me sweat? Yes. Perfect. Okay, let's fire away. Rapid fire real quick. All right. Just help anyone out there wondering if they're looking at a specific channel. Should we use, you know, testing for this purpose? Okay, so first I'm an organization and I have a peer to peer fundraising campaign coming up. Maybe, you know, this summer. Should I use texting to recruit people to fundraise for my campaign? Yes. Should I use texting to reach out to expiring recurring donors? Yes. Yes, absolutely. Like more than email or combined with email? No, I mean, I think I would start with text. You know, it should always be a combination, but you think about like managing churn on recurring donations. It's all about making easy. So text message. Should I send a text message to a lapsed donor who forgot to give... this year? Maybe!