Tag Archives: charities

Text to donate

How often do you contact your donors?

Text to donate
Text to donate

With all the hype about GDPR and opting in vs opting out, many charities refrain from communicating with their donors and supporters. We believe it is essential to stay in contact with those who give to your cause, to keep them in the loop about how their donations help, what projects you are working on, upcoming events and much more.

Automated updates

Our system is designed to allow you to send your donors on an SMS journey, you can begin with a Single Giving campaign with consent enabled to gather opt-ins and from this, use our outbound SMS tool to keep in contact with them. Also, with having consent enabled on your campaign, you can also make use of our “extra response SMS” tool which allows automated texts to be sent to your opt-in donors weekly, monthly or at a delay of your choice.

When someone opts into future contact by your charity using InstaGiv’s SMS services, they are always sent a text in response, to acknowledge their consent preference and to give them the opportunity to opt-out again.

Recorded and trackable

All SMS correspondence between any mobile and your text campaigns with InstaGiv are fully recorded and stored on your account within the mobile history section; this information is stored for the benefit of the charity should they ever need this traceability information, and acts as an additional safety net. Our system has the intelligence to block any mobile number from receiving any SMS’ from you if they have opted out at any time post opting in.

When someone opts in, and their mobile number is on a recipient list for you to use within outbound SMS, if any mobile number, later on, opts out again, you do not need to scan through lists upon lists to remove their mobile number.

85% of people prefer SMS

From a recent survey carried out, we discovered that over 85% of people prefer SMS communication over phone call, I suppose it is because people do not need to take much time out of their day to read and respond to a text message, however an information call can take up to 30 minutes on some occasions.

From some client research, we can also see a trend in the times of outbound SMS’ being scheduled; most clients tend to send or schedule their sends for the late evening time after 6 pm.
At this time, most people are on the tube, trains, bus or at home, so they have time to check their phones.

Keeping in contact with your donors has never been easier, let us know if you would like one of our friendly advisors to give you a 1:1 demo.

Written by Caitriona McCarry
Client Accounts

Why are charities using text-to-donate?

I am sure you often wonder when you’re working within your charity or fundraising role, what is the best way to go with your next campaigns? Or why are charities starting to use SMS donations more and more now?

We have put together a few of our main thoughts as to why charities may choose text-giving over other methods, or else to add to their list of donation collection methods.

User-friendly

Our first thought is that text-to-give is incredibly user-friendly. There are no forms, fuss or verification checks required. The donor simply texts their chosen charities “keyword” to the 5 digit shortcodes and a donation is made.

People don’t often like to partake in anything that takes up too much of their time or requires long-haul forms. It is also user-friendly for the charity. Text campaigns can be created and inactivated in a matter of minutes. This helps to reach deadlines that little bit easier.

Quick and Easy

SMS Giving is also quick and easy to do. It takes around 60 seconds or less to send a donation by text. If someone wanted to give a charitable donation without much effort – SMS is the answer.

Most people within the UK today either own or have access to a mobile phone, therefore, it is one of the most effective ways to make a donation. If you are at an event with no change in your pocket, no problem – you probably will most likely have your phone with you so the donation can be made easily through your phone. Donations can be as little as £1 too.

Detailed reporting on progress

Reporting is so important when it comes to SMS fundraising, you need to be able to monitor the progress and measure the success of your campaigns.

Mobile Fundraising and Engagement with InstaGiv has a realm of various reporting functions from your inbound campaign report, consent and opt-in report, Gift Aid collection report and much more.

Our regular giving reporting displays everything from the number of subscriptions per month, number of new sign-ups, gross donations per donation, number of skips and stops, retention percentages and much more. This is essential and is readily available with InstaGiv campaigns.

These are just to name a few; the reasons are endless as to why charities continue to choose SMS giving as part of their fundraising efforts. Other thoughts we had include:

  • It’s cost-effective
  • Has a fast turnaround
  • Works in real time
  • It can be accessed 24/7 among lots of other benefits

We hope you enjoyed this week’s blog if you have any thoughts you would like us to focus on we would be happy to hear them. Reach out to us at help@instagiv.com.

More from instaGiv

Top Tips for your SMS Campaigns

Charities and Social Media

The Growth of SMS 

 

Social media for charities

Charities and Social Media

Almost all businesses, organisations, charities and not for profits have a social media presence, why is this? Well because the likes of Facebook has 2.3 billion users, meaning social media is one of the easiest and direct methods of promoting your cause and reaching out to your supporters.

It’s not that easy though, you need a following of supporters who are legitimately interested first, which can be somewhat difficult to build.

To enhance the engagement and conversation on your social channels, it may be a good idea to have cause-related content.

Content

Have content that encourages people to stop scrolling through their feed and stop at your post. Have something engaging, something that is eye-catching and encouraging people to comment or share, which is more likely to spark a discussion among your supporters.

Having content that drives engagement will also give your charity the opportunity to gain feedback, as many people tend to put their thoughts and opinions into the comments section below a post.

Credibility

Ensure your social profiles are credible, when someone visits your page for the first time, they are most likely going to form an opinion or thought instantly, first impressions are everything and all that! So, make sure you have got your page fully up to date, giving visitors an insight into the hard work you do to fight your cause. The use of visuals also ways work a treat – people love images and videos over long reams of paragraphs.

Increasing your Following

Everyone knows how difficult it is to increase your followers and supporters on social media. Engage in conversations and posts related to your cause or sector, this can be sort of like “online networking” as such.

Lastly and most importantly, promote, advertise and scream from the rooftops as much as possible. Try to get your cause into the limelight at every possible opportunity. Have your social icons on everything you do, all merchandise, email footers, advertising materials and so on.

There was a program on BBC 1 NI last night called “The Search”, it was actively advertised and promoted over social media the days leading up to it. The program was about missing people in Northern Ireland. This show zoomed in on the work carried out by the CRS – Community Rescue Service. A charity that is run entirely by volunteers. This was an eye-opener into the work that this cause and these people do, which is all voluntary.

It had encouraged me to donate as well as look into how I sign-up or help to be a part of their rescue team.

A lot can be done when actively promoting your cause as widely and as much as possible.

Check out our latest blog post on key dates for your diary, and you could use some of these in your upcoming social media strategy.

8 sleeps until Christmas

17th of December – how has that happened already?

How has Christmas came around so quickly?
How has Christmas come around so quickly?

This year has flown in for us but then again, time does fly when you are kept busy. We are beyond delighted to see the success of our client’s festive Christmas campaigns for this year and they’re not over yet.

This time of year brings out the generosity in many people. According to the Charities Aid Foundations Annual Giving Report for 2018, November and December are the two peak months each year for charity giving.

People are more generous in November and December

This shouldn’t come as a shock as these months have Movember, Giving Tuesday and countless Christmas appeals. This year, we saw a rise in the number of campaigns being created by our clients in preparation for Giving Tuesday and in addition to that, there have been over 200 Christmas keywords requested in recent weeks.

Almost every type of our SMS fundraising range being used this season from Single Giving, Raffles, Lotteries, Competitions, Event type, Outbound SMS and Registration campaigns.

CAFs giving report also illustrates the different age groups and how often they tend to give to charitable causes. This is a great starting point when going into the year with fresh fundraising and campaign ideas as it allows you to aim to provide each of your demographics with the different ways to give that suit them best. See the end of this article for the link to the full report.

With just over one week to go, we would like to wish everyone the best of luck with their remaining fundraising campaigns. We can’t wait to hear how you all got on with your fundraising efforts.

Happy Christmas from instaGiv

From all of us here at instaGiv, we hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. If you need any help or assistance over the festive period with your fundraising campaign or would like to set up a last-minute fundraiser contact us on help@instagiv.com.

Instagiv
Instagiv

A day in the life of InstaGiv

Hi everyone, my name is Caitriona and I’m the Customer Service Manager here at Instagiv. As our blog grows, more and more people are tuning in to hear what we have to say. We thought it’d be fun to show you what exactly happens at Instagiv HQ. We often get questions like ‘What exactly does Instagiv do’ so we thought we’d show you exactly what we do.

What a gorgeous view we have from our offices.

8:30 am

Our office doesn’t open until 9, but I like to get in early and get myself organised with a cup of tea before I sit down to catch up on emails. Our office is situated in a lovely seaside town called Portstewart on the North Coast of Ireland. The area is pretty picturesque and the office is along the promenade. There are a number of gorgeous coffee shops, so if I’m feeling lazy I’ll get a takeout coffee as a treat.

The atmosphere every day at InstaGiv HQ is all things fundraising, engagement, charities, SMS giving, and the list goes on, so we have a lot to get done every day.

Our team are always busy looking after all aspects of the business with the most important focus being customer care.

Arriving at InstaGiv HQ bright and early.

10 am

After I catch up on emails and client queries, we have a team catch up once a week to make sure everyone is on the same page.

The amazing view from our wonderful conference room makes our team meetings so much better. The meetings are normally informal because we have a talented team of people who really work well together. However, when the whiteboard is in use, we know things mean business! That’s me telling the team about all the innovative and exciting up-coming projects that we have planned in the coming months -watch this space.

Some of the InstaGiv team catching up and chatting about new marketing materials.

11:30 am

After a team catch-up, I’ll normally have a few calls scheduled for the rest of the morning. You’ll often find our Customer Service team with their head-sets on training new charities, onboarding clients, carrying out platform demos or holding weekly webinars with our existing clients.

Our team in Customer Service will tell you that that no two days are the same because we treat our clients as individuals and look at their specific needs, goals and requirements and create campaigns to suit their fundraising projects.

1 pm

It’s lunch time. Thankfully, we have a great office with loads of space to enjoy a relaxing lunch time. If I don’t go out for lunch, or take a walk along the beautiful promenade, you’ll find me in our ‘greenhouse’ playing a game of pool or catching up with work friends.

2:30 pm

It was a great idea for management to move our Finance office to the ground floor as I often liaise with our in-house accountant, Angela, with regards to client accounts. We work well as a team and have no issues in getting the job done! We’re in deep discussion here, making our way through our daily to-do list. One is for sure, our clients are never waiting for their out-payments.

Me and Angela chatting all things finance.

4 pm 

We have a development team who work tirelessly developing our platform. Without these guys, we would all well and truly be lost.

Not only did they build our wonderful platforms, but they work every day in continuous improvement, making it better and better each day in meeting the needs of our ever-growing customer base.

I normally have something for them to do, so I’ll go upstairs for a quick catch-up, and normally stay for a quick cup of tea too.

The Instagiv development team

One of our development team working hard on the Instagiv platform.

4:45 pm

Our office closes at 5 pm, so before we lock up for the day I like to do a quick re-cap of what I’ve done and what I need to do tomorrow. Everyday is different here and that’s why I love my job. We have between 200-300 clients to look after every day, so we always have plenty to do.

 

Are your Supporters Fundraising on your Behalf?

Event Fundraising

Would you like to create a team of supporters to help generate more fundraising for your charitable cause? With event fundraising, you can create an army of supporters working together on your behalf.

Each supporter is given a unique code attach to a keyword, such as GIVE_H7Y5, which acts as a tracking device. This will capture their fundraising journey directly on the platform.  In real time, you can see exactly who is raising, which funds and when.

Why?

While issuing your supporters with sponsor forms and collection buckets is a great traditional way of collecting donations, why not step out of your comfort zone and become more mobile with Instagiv’s Event Fundraising tool?

The unique fundraiser code being H7Y5 will allow you to see how well each of your supporters are performing in gathering donations on your behalf. We also can provide a ‘Totalise Page’ that allows your supporters to visit the URL at any time, enter the keyword plus their unique code and view how much they have raised thus far. It is a fantastic way to keep your supporters motivated and show them exactly how well they are doing. By letting them see on-screen exactly how much they have fundraised so far, they will feel encouraged to keep on going and smash their targets.

How?

It’s a simple but extremely effective way to fundraise in 2018, so why not see how beneficial it will be for your summer fundraising campaigns? It is that easy!

For more information, check out our website at www.instagiv.com.