Text-To-Donate

What is text-to-donate

Text-to-donate is a type of campaign that allows people to donate money to your organization from their cell phones via text message. Text-to-donate is also referred to as text-to-give or text-to-pledge.

How does text-to-donate work?

You will have to register with a text-to-donate software platform to get started. Once registered, the platform will provide you with a specific phone number for you to use to engage with your donor base.

Donors can either text a specific dollar amount (such as $10) or a short code (for example “REDCROSS”) to your number.

Next, your donors will receive a link to their phone to confirm their donation amount and provide their credit card information. In the future, if a donor wants to contribute more to your organization, they can simply text “donate” and the donation will be confirmed with the information they already provided.

How do nonprofits use text-to-donate?

Text-to-donate is a great way to save time. Text-to-donate campaigns are a no-brainer because many givers now have mobile devices. This campaign makes it easy for people to donate to your organization because they won’t have to sit at a computer and visit your donation page. Instead, they can text one word or a dollar amount and donate quickly, usually in minutes.

It’s also a great way to track donations from offline sources. For example, you can track the success of your donation letters by making text-to-donate your call-to-action. This is much easier than requiring your donors to type in a URL. Plus, when you set up specific text-to-donate campaigns, you’ll know exactly where the donor is coming from.

You’ll also collect useful data about donors in the process, including their names and email addresses, to use for future engagement efforts.

Can small nonprofits use text-to-donate?

Yes! Nonprofits of all sizes can use and benefit from text-to-donate. Naturally, a nonprofit’s size often impacts the size of its budget, which may dictate what kind of text-to-donate platform it can afford. Thankfully there is a wide range of price and feature options, making text-to-donate a very accessible fundraising tool for all nonprofits.

How to set up text-to-donate

Before you can start using text-to-donate to receive donations, you’ll have to use a platform that supports the service, like Kindful.

For Kindful users, implementing a text-to-donate campaign is simple.You decide your keyword and then create your response message. You can have more than one keyword, if you’d like.

When prompting people to donate, you give them your text-to-donate phone number (a standard, 10-digit phone number, like your mobile phone number).

You would then ask them to send a message to your number using your keyword. They would receive the message you created (a general update, a link to a donate page, information about a new fundraising event, etc.) and then follow the prompt to interact with your organization.

This makes giving as easy as sending a text.

How to set up text-to-donate with Kindful

Who provides text-to-donate services?

As mentioned above, Kindful and Bloomerang users have access to Kindful’s built-in text-to-donate features. However, there are other platforms that offer text-to-donate services as well.

iDonate

iDonate offers solutions for all kinds of digital giving, including text-to-donate. Organizations can use iDonate to generate text-to-donate numbers and then include them in all kinds of appeals– email, direct mail, and more. iDonate is a Kindful integration partner, making it easy for Kindful users to keep all of their important data in one convenient spot.

Qgiv

Qgiv is best known for its easy-to-use interface. Another bonus of Qgiv is that it has no limits on the amount a donor can enter, whereas many other text-to-donate platforms have pre-set donation amounts. They also offer solutions outside of text-to-donate, like peer-to-peer fundraising.

mGive

mGive has relationships with over 70 US wireless carriers, making them a great solution for any nonprofit looking to solicit donations using text-to-donate. They also bill the donor’s wireless carrier directly, so the donor doesn’t have to use a credit card to make their donation, making online giving even easier.

Bottom Line

A text to donate campaign makes it easy for you to meet donors where they are—on their cell phones—and raise money in minutes via text message.

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