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Regular giving offers a multitude of benefits to charities

• It increases revenue by raising the lifetime value of donors. The amount a supporter donates over a year’s monthly donations is often significantly more than a one off donation. Even though a monthly donation may be a lower value, over the years this adds up to far more. 
• It improves cash flow. For a lot of charities donations can congregate around certain times of year which can present operational challenges. This can be due to seasonal impacts, as well as large annual events which generate a significant amount of donations within a small period. 
• It allows for better planning with more predictable income. Once a charity knows the average retention rates and donation amounts of regular givers, it can predict monthly income fairly accurately. This assists with longer term planning and budgeting of operational and marketing activities, as well as the work and services that a charity is providing. 
• It produces higher ROI. Acquiring donors requires marketing and budget resources. If you are spending this on acquiring donors with a higher lifetime value you will see a better return over time. Many charities using instaGiv’s Regular Giving solution are still seeing tens of thousands of pounds of donations each year from campaigns that they set up years ago.  

For these reasons, as well as many others, regular giving is an essential revenue generator for many charities. Now more than ever it is crucial for charities to have consistent, predictable income. However, research has shown that Direct Debit sign ups decreased by 26.6% between May and September of 2020. There is however some good news, cancellation rates are getting lower. What does this mean? If you can get supporters signed up to regular giving, there is a higher chance of keeping them.

So why is regular giving by SMS so appealing to supporters? 

• 84% of adults now use a smartphone and spend on average more than two hours online on their devices each day. Additionally, 80% of all donations in 2020 were made digitally. With people now using their mobile phones for many day to day tasks it’s likely that they are also using them to donate. It has been stated that one of the easiest ways to ensure a donation is to reduce the number of steps in the journey. Online forms that take a long time to fill out, require people to switch between screens or which don’t appear correctly on mobiles can lead to high drop off rates. Sending a text message to sign up to a monthly donation offers a simple one step solution for supporters to donate to your cause. 
• Research has shown that Millennials and Gen-Z are far more likely than other generations to give via SMS (a whopping 92%). If you’re trying to acquire long term supporters from these demographics then SMS giving is a familiar, trusted donation tool. 
• There are lower barriers to entry with text to donate. Some people may be reluctant to sign up to, or not feel ready to commit to, a Direct Debit. The sign up process for SMS giving is also quicker and does not require as much personal or bank information to be shared. 
• SMS giving gives supporters more control over their donations, making it a transparent and ethical monthly giving solution. If for some reason a supporter is unable to make their donation one month they can simply skip a donation rather than cancelling their Direct Debit, meaning you don’t lose donors. 

With average retention rates of 89% and skip rates of less than 4% per year, SMS is a great monthly giving option for charities to increase the lifetime value of donors. 

How can instaGiv help?

instaGiv allows charities to collect monthly donations via SMS. All you need to do is set up a regular giving keyword and choose your donation price point. As with our single giving keywords, the text messages are customisable, and all compliance requirements are built in. 

For supporters, donating is easy. They simply need to text the keyword to your shortcode once and their donation will be taken like clockwork each month. No forms or fuss and no card details to enter. 

To set up your regular giving keyword today simply sign up or login. 

To speak to us, email help@instagiv.com