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How to Steward Donors Using Text Messaging: 4 Key Strategies

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A guest post by Mike Snusz of Tatango

Your nonprofit’s donor stewardship strategy is a cornerstone in nurturing meaningful relationships with your supporters. You might already be using media like email and direct mail to connect with donors, but have you also considered leveraging text messaging?

Text messaging offers an open rate of 99% and read rate of 90% within just three minutes of sending, far surpassing the efficacy of traditional communications. In a crowded digital landscape where grabbing your donors’ attention is essential to your success, text messaging can be a game-changer in your efforts to connect, engage, and retain donors.

In this article, we’ll explore the top ways you can use text messaging to build relationships over time:

  • Invite Donors to Upcoming Events
  • Send Thank-You Messages
  • Acknowledge Milestones and Anniversaries
  • Share Fundraising Updates

Invite Donors to Upcoming Events

Engaging your newest donors and immersing them in your organization’s mission is pivotal to building strong relationships. By text messaging, you can extend invitations to upcoming events, providing an avenue for supporters to witness your nonprofit’s impact firsthand.

For example, let’s say you’re a higher education institution aiming to steward strong relationships with your alumni. You might have an upcoming event where current students can meet alumni working in STEM fields. Leveraging your text messaging platform, you can segment your contact list by alumni who majored in STEM fields and send out an invitation to your event.

This best practice extends well into the nonprofit sector, too. For example, if you’re a marine conservation nonprofit, you could invite donors who have demonstrated interest in sea turtle conservation to a topic-focused luncheon that discusses your efforts to restore sea turtle populations. Include a mobile-friendly registration link to your event within the text so your supporters can sign up from their phones with no extra hassle.

Send Thank-You Messages

Expressing gratitude is at the core of effective donor stewardship. According to Aly Sterling Philanthropy’s guide to donor stewardship, sending heartfelt and timely thank-you messages immediately after a donation is given can leave a lasting positive impression, showing donors that their contributions matter. With texting’s high open and read rates, you can power off thank-you notes that supporters are bound to see just moments after they give.

In your thank-you messages, make sure to include the following details:

  • Donor’s first name: A personalized greeting like “Dear John” instead of “Dear Donor” is much more likely to grab your donors’ attention and encourage them to read your message.
  • The specific amount they gave: No donation is too small! Make sure to reference the specific donation amount supporters gave. If donors gave a large contribution, you might consider using additional stewardship strategies like calling them on the phone or setting up a meeting to thank them in person.
  • How it made an impact on the particular campaign: Explaining how supporters’ donations helped to advance your mission will reinforce that they gave to a worthy cause.

Manually including these specific details in each of your text messages is nearly impossible and would eat up way too much of your nonprofit’s time. Instead, invest in a nonprofit text messaging platform that offers personalization and automation abilities. By saving time with the right technology, your nonprofit can focus on honing your content strategy and strengthening your text-to-give campaign overall.

Acknowledge Milestones and Anniversaries

Recognizing important milestones and anniversaries in donors’ lives enhances the personal connection between them and your nonprofit. With text messaging, you can spread some cheer on these special occasions with ease and feel confident that donors will see your messages.

Send texts that acknowledge important dates for your donors, like their:

  • Birthdays
  • Anniversaries
  • Graduation

You can also reflect on milestones as they relate to your organization, such as highlighting:

  • Anniversary of a supporter’s first donation
  • Anniversary of the first time they volunteered
  • Milestones like donating over $500 to your organization since they first became a donor

This will show supporters that you value them as individuals and deeply appreciate their ongoing support. Plus, this will help to reengage supporters who haven’t given back in a while.

You can even tie these milestones/anniversaries to your fundraising goals by asking donors to continue their support and give to your upcoming campaign when appropriate. For example, if a donor’s birthday is coming up, you might send a text message out a week in advance that invites them to lead a peer-to-peer fundraiser and collect donations in honor of their special day.

Alternatively, you could create and send a digital card that acknowledges an anniversary or milestone and encourage supporters to share it on their social media accounts. This will help your nonprofit gain exposure among new audiences and attract potential new donors.

Share Fundraising Updates

Transparency is of the utmost importance in building trust with donors. Tatango’s guide to text-to-give explains that sharing regular text updates about how your fundraising is progressing and how donors’ gifts make a difference can help donors feel more invested in your mission.

For instance, your nonprofit might text your supporters:

  • An celebratory message when you reach the halfway point of your fundraising goal
  • Stories from beneficiaries whose lives have improved because of donor support
  • A video that highlights your nonprofit’s impact on the community and how donations from your text-to-give campaign will advance your efforts

These updates convey your commitment to using their donations effectively and can spur continued engagement. After you share updates, make sure to connect them back to your campaign by inviting donors to push your fundraising goals forward. Create a brief and straightforward call to action that asks donors to give or spread the word about your campaign to friends and family.

Wrapping Up

Incorporating text messaging into your donor stewardship strategy offers an unparalleled opportunity to elevate your engagement efforts. By engaging in proactive relationship-building and communicating directly with supporters by text, you can significantly bolster your donor retention rates and cultivate enduring partnerships. Ensure you’re working with a top nonprofit text messaging platform to send messages with ease.

Mike Snusz brings 19 years of digital fundraising experience to his role as Director of Nonprofit Customer Experience at Tatango, a text messaging platform for nonprofits and political campaigns.

Prior to Tatango, Mike spent 15 years at Blackbaud leading a team of digital consultants that helped nonprofits improve their online fundraising, monthly giving, email marketing and peer-to-peer fundraising programs. Mike started his nonprofit career managing the Ride For Roswell from 2003 to 2005 in his hometown of Buffalo, NY.

Creating An Effective Nonprofit Blog: A Mini Guide

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A guest post by Sarah Fargusson of Cornershop Creative

Picture this: you’re searching online for things you can do in your daily life to be more environmentally friendly and come across a blog post with a list of daily life changes that you can make to help the environment.

You find the post super helpful, take a few of the suggestions to heart, and then begin exploring the rest of the nonprofit’s website to see what else this organization can teach you and how you can support them in return.

This scenario is common for organizations with blogs. Blog posts help your nonprofit share relevant and meaningful information with your audience, engaging your current audience with fresh content and bringing in new supporters through the process.

Why Your Nonprofit Needs a Blog

As a marketing tactic, blogging is an oldie, but a goodie. While maintaining a blog isn’t possible for every organization, if you’re able to keep up with a consistent posting schedule, blogs are an excellent tool to connect supporters to your mission through relevant topics.

There are tons of benefits, including:

  • Establish your organization as a thought leader. Sharing your expertise on topics related to your mission in a public place like your site’s blog can help set you up as a thought leader in your space.
  • Share important updates/information/stories. Blog posts are a great place to share timely content with your audience, including news or organizational updates and stories from your community.
  • Engage with your nonprofit’s audience on a regular basis. Consistency is key when it comes to blogging, and regular, fresh content will have your audience visiting often to see what’s new.
  • Boost your visibility via SEO-driven content marketing. Potential supporters interested in your area of work, but unfamiliar with your organization, can find you through optimized blog posts on relevant topics.
  • Fuel your other marketing channels. Blog content can also be shared on social media, in email campaigns, and through other marketing channels you may use to stay connected and keep your organization top of mind for supporters.

With all of these great benefits, have we convinced you yet? Starting and maintaining a blog allows your organization to connect with your current supporters and attract new ones. It’s well worth the time and effort!

Blogging Tip #1: Tell Stories That Resonate With Your Readers

Who doesn’t love a good story? Sharing stories helps us connect with each other and drives home the impact of your nonprofit’s work in the lives of real people.

Like any good story, the stories that you share on your organization’s blog should have:

  • Characters that your audience can relate with
  • A familiar setting
  • A conflict that is resolved (ideally through your organization’s work)
  • Details that help readers connect to the characters and outcome

Share stories about beneficiaries who tapped into your services, volunteers who are passionate about your cause, or donors who made a big difference to your organization. Anyone who represents the impact that you’re able to make toward your mission is a good contender. The sky’s the limit!

 

Just be sure to get permission from the subject of your story before sharing their story on your blog.

Blogging Tip #2: Incorporate Compelling Visuals

Compelling visuals have the power to take your blog content to the next level. While text will likely be the meat and potatoes of the majority of your posts, visuals and great nonprofit website design helps keep things interesting and give readers a bit of visual relief and a different way to engage with the topic as they work through the text content.

Mix things up for your readers and incorporate a variety of different visuals into blog posts, taking into account the particular topic or post. You might include:

Compelling visuals stick with readers and drive your topic home. And, for all of the skimmers out there, solid visuals keep visitors’ attention, keeping them on the page and reading more of your post than they otherwise would have.

Blogging Tip #3: Post New Content Regularly

When it comes to blogging, consistency is key. Determine a posting schedule and stick to it. While there’s no need to schedule down to the minute and urgent to-dos will come up, posting content regularly helps to keep people visiting the blog.

It’s what brings all of those wonderful benefits listed above and shows your community that you’re actively working to keep them updated on important information.

To keep yourself on track, consider creating a content calendar, working ahead during quieter times, or pulling in other team members (or even a marketing partner) to help create blog content in a timely manner.

3 Strategies for Promoting Your Blog

In order to bring visitors to your blog and reap all of the benefits, you’ll need to promote your blog to your audience. Plus, getting more eyes on your blog more often will encourage blog readers to explore other parts of your nonprofit’s website, too.

These tips will drive more visitors to your new blog and keep them coming back:

  • Leverage on-page SEO best practices. Following SEO best practices will help your blog post rank for relevant keywords and bring the people searching for those keywords right to your site.
  • Collaborate with other bloggers in the nonprofit space. By partnering up with others in the nonprofit space, you can expand your audience even more by guest blogging and building backlinks.
  • Share blog posts on social media and in emails. Sharing your blog posts with your current audience through social media and email will engage your current audience and keep them coming back to your site.

While adding a blog to your nonprofit marketing toolkit does take time and effort, the benefits are well worth the work. A blog can help you continuously grow and engage with your audience, encouraging them to visit your website and take action for your cause on a regular basis. So what are you waiting for? Get blogging!

Sarah Fergusson digital mavenSarah Fargusson – Director of Digital Strategy at Cornershop Creative

Self-described as a “non-profit junkie,” Sarah has dedicated her career to serving the needs of the non-profit sector. Her project management experience spans a variety of non-profit management disciplines including strategic planning, community engagement, capacity building, fundraising and research. She has worked both in and for the non-profit sector at the Feminist Majority Foundation, the Sadie Nash Leadership Project, and the consulting firms The Lee Institute and The Curtis Group.

With her ever expanding non-profit tool belt, Sarah joined Cornershop Creative to tap into her techie, creative side, while developing meaningful partnerships with her clients to help them more effectively achieve their goals.

Fundraising Tuesday: 4 Tips for Getting Started with Virtual Product Fundraising

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A guest post by Debbie Salat of ABC Fundraising

As a nonprofit fundraiser, you likely host a variety of different fundraising events and campaigns each year. You can improve upon your current practices by finding fundraising ideas that are easier to implement, more accessible to donors, and more profitable. That’s where virtual product fundraising comes in.

According to Double the Donation, 63% of donors prefer donating online. Virtual product fundraisers allow donors to contribute to your organization in a way that caters to their needs. Additionally, they’re easy to set up, simple to participate in, and offer donors something in return for their donation.

To help you leverage this impactful fundraising method, we’ve created a list of four tips for how to get started with virtual product fundraising.

1. Determine your goals.

Provide focus to your virtual product fundraiser with clear goals. That way, your fundraising team has a complete understanding of the  purpose of the fundraising.

To develop a distinct fundraising goal, follow the SMART goal framework:

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Achievable
  • Relevant
  • Timely

These guidelines allow you to set objectives that are easy to track and evaluate. For example, a goal of raising $10,000 over the next six months through a virtual product fundraiser to support people without access to healthcare is a more tangible goal than simply raising money in support of a good cause.

Additionally, sharing these goals with your supporters will provide greater transparency about what you’re raising money for. As a result, you can gain donors’ trust and build lasting relationships with them.

2. Select a product.

The goals you’ve set should drive your product selection. For example, if you’re trying to connect with donors during the holidays through your fundraising efforts, selling holiday decorations could help you achieve that goal.

Check out these examples of different product types you might consider for your fundraiser:

  • Food: Give your donors the chance to buy their favorite snacks and support your cause at the same time. ABC Fundraising recommends selling cookie dough in particular because you can earn up to an 80% profit.
  • Branded merchandise: Turn donors into brand advocates with branded merchandise. Selling t-shirts, hats, and travel mugs with your organization’s logo can help boost brand awareness.
  • Discount opportunities: Allow your donors to save on everyday purchases and give back to your cause by selling discount cards. You can even give back to the community by including local vendors in the discount offerings.

If you’re having trouble deciding which product to sell, think about your donors. What would they most like to purchase? Consider sending a survey to collect donor feedback and get them excited about your upcoming virtual product fundraiser.

3. Promote your fundraiser.

Let your supporters know about your fundraiser by promoting it effectively. You can spark interest in your fundraiser by showing some product sneak peeks beforehand. Then, you can share how to participate once the fundraiser is up and running.

Make sure to promote your fundraiser using a variety of communication channels, such as:

  • Email newsletter. Include a section about your virtual product fundraiser. Make sure to add pictures of the product you’re selling and the link to your online store.
  • Social media. Show off images of the products you’re selling. People will be more enticed to buy snacks and merchandise if they can get a good look at them before they make their purchase.
  • Website. Your website is the hub for updating your supporters about your organization. Create a new page to market your virtual product fundraiser.

To spread even more awareness of your fundraiser, lean on your supporters for help. Encourage them to share your online store link with friends and family. You can even turn it into a contest or giveaway, offering one entry per referral. Then, you can offer some of the products you’re selling as the grand prize.

4. Track your fundraiser’s progress.

One of the reasons why creating clear goals for your fundraiser is so important is that it allows you to measure your success.

One way to measure your success is through a fundraising thermometer. This visual allows you to track donations and provides an easy way for your supporters to monitor the fundraiser’s progress. A fundraising thermometer can also encourage supporters to contribute, especially if you’re close to reaching your goal.

Another way to measure your fundraiser’s success is through Google Analytics. Through the Google Ad Grants program, eligible nonprofits receive $10,000 in monthly ad credits they can use to promote important landing pages on their websites. If you’re part of the program, you can create goals in Google Analytics that align with your fundraising goals and promote your virtual product fundraising page.

While Google Analytics can’t necessarily track donations, you can measure the success of your marketing efforts and determine which are most effective. Then, you can make sure to keep up those methods for future campaigns.

It can be daunting to set up a new type of fundraiser for the first time, but these tips will set you on the right track for a successful virtual product fundraiser. For extra help, consider partnering with a virtual product fundraising provider that can assist you with setting up your online store and managing your fundraiser.

Debbie Salat head shotDebbie Salat 

Debbie Salat is the director of fundraising activities and product development at ABC Fundraising(r) – Debbie joined ABC Fundraising(r) in 2010 and is responsible for launching over 6500 fundraising campaigns for schools, churches, youth sports teams and non-profit organizations all across the USA.

With over 20 years of fundraising experience, Debbie knows the path to success for fundraisers which she shares with groups on a daily basis so they can achieve their fundraising goals.

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