Tag Archives: charity

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

Instagiv

5 ways mobile-fundraising with InstaGiv will benefit your charity

Mobile-fundraising is a fantastic tool used by charities and not-for-profits around the world to raise donations. Donors are given the opportunity to donate money through their mobile phones. These can be smartphones or tablets, and the whole point of mobile-fundraising is to making donating quick, easy and straightforward.

People can give to an organisation from anywhere in the world, through their mobile phone. We use our mobiles for everything in the world, so why not for charity fundraising too? It’s an amazing tool, that can help your charity raise more donations than ever.

In this short blog, we’ll give you five ways in which instaGiv can help your charity in 2019 with mobile-fundraising.

 

Instagiv
Instagiv

Bulk Outbound SMS tool

Upload your recipient list and send your supporters bulk outbound SMS texts. This can be used to inform your supporters about an upcoming event, marathon, support for a petition and much more. This tool allows you to stay engaged with your donor family, keeping them updated on recent news or requesting a donation. This bulk outbound SMS does not cost the supporter anything to receive; it’s free to the user and allows you to target an audience suited to your charity.

Instagiv
Instagiv

Consent Feature

With the built-in consent feature tool on the InstaGiv online platform, you can ensure you are always compliant with the latest GDPR polices. You can enable the consent feature tool on all of your campaigns, giving your supporters the option to either opt-in or opt out of future communication. The system automatically groups the mobile numbers of donors who have opted out into a separate list allowing you to differentiate between those who have given consent and those who have not.

Instagiv
Instagiv

The new Gift Aid Feature

We have recently just launched our new Gift Aid collection mechanism. We will now automatically match your Gift Aid declarations to SMS donations collected on the platform and provide straightforward tools that allow you to download batches of donations for processing with HMRC. Gift Aid declarations can be collected from supporters via SMS or through our new mobile-optimised form – both of which we have ensured are compliant with the relevant regulations.

Instagiv
Instagiv

Data Ownership

Clients get full ownership of all data and activity on their instaGiv dashboard and platform. The InstaGiv platform has many features allowing you to see detailed statistics on your fundraising campaigns as well as supporter information on all donations and SMS’ received. The platform gives you the ability to download all your campaign data in report form using the download CSV tool which brings several benefits. Having the ability to download your campaign data and donation amounts allow you to effectively analyse your different campaigns and see which works best for your Charity.

Instagiv
Instagiv

Track donations

When you log in to your InstaGiv account one of the first pages you will see is your dashboard with all your donation and campaign activity – updated in real time. There are graphs, charts and statistics illustrating the success of your campaigns, how much money each different campaign has raised, top campaigns, incoming activity, monthly donations, and overall amounts. You can instantly see any incoming donations with options such as viewing how many times a supporter has donated.

instaGiv

To find out more about our services, and how we can help your charity, get in contact today. 

Donations

Why are Charity Awareness Days Important?

In this week’s blog post we have come up with the main reasons why we think that awareness days are important and the importance of promoting them.

The purpose of awareness days is generally to give knowledge to the public about various health, social, humanitarian and cultural issues.

There are various awareness days for all types of causes throughout the UK.

  • They not only help raise the awareness of what they are, but they help raise cause awareness also. Do you think I have used work awareness too much?

Well, what we mean by this is, for example; from the 1st – 31st of March is Ovarian Cancer Month, this is the perfect opportunity for cancer-related charities and not for profits to get their message out there, shout from the rooftops about the work that they do and how it helps. This is a great way to spam your social newsfeeds with your upcoming campaigns projects, fundraising events and ways for your supporters to donate to your charity.

  • They make the public more aware of “what to look out for” in terms of their health

What we mean by this is, awareness days give us an insight into the signs of the likes of breast cancer, prostate cancer when someone is having a stroke and much more. Campaigns for causes such as these educate us on what to look out for and how to recognise when something isn’t right.

  • They encourage your supporters to participate in a fundraising event or do their activity to help raise funds and awareness for a cause.

When people are reminded of a good cause, it often inspires them to do something to help that cause or charity out. It may be a good idea to have an event or fundraising campaign running alongside the dates of the awareness days that suit you. This can be something as small as a sponsored walk, no sugar for a day, no alcohol or a week or a larger event like a fun run, sleepout or a fashion show. People like something that gets them out of the house and out of their comfort zone. I am the worst footballer, and I am not a great cook either, but I would still make a good attempt at a fundraising Five Aside Match or Come Dine with Me!

We hope you enjoyed our thoughts and took something positive away from this blog. Let us know what you would like to see next!

Charity donations

Why is Donor Engagement Important?

Creating relationships and maintaining donor and supporter communication is essential for charities. You want to build a solid, credible supporter base. The best way to keep them in the loop is to have a strong communication process in place.

Why is this important?

Appreciation

Your supporters like to know that they are appreciated. After events, big campaigns or any other charity happenings involving your volunteers, donors and supporters, follow up with them either via SMS or life the telephone to show your thanks. This way, they will know that their efforts are being recognised.

To show how their money has helped

Follow up with your single or regular donors to show how their generous donations have helped your cause. You should always be transparent when it comes to your donations. People like to know that their charitable donations are going to good use. Make it clear where the donations go, and it may also help with donor retention.

To keep people up to date with your cause

People like to know the progress of the cause that you are fighting, especially if it is something that is close to their heart. Maintain communication and tell your supporters a story, show them what your next campaign is going to be and give them an insight into the positive work that you are doing. People like to see active charities continually working towards something better.

Repeat Donations

If you have a donor base who give to your charity on a one-off basis, by maintaining communication and keeping them in “the know”, may help you upgrade them to perhaps a regular gift. By showing recognition and engaging with your supporters either directly or indirectly, will always have its benefits.

We hope you enjoyed this week’s blog post. If you have any thoughts on what you’d like us to talk more about in our blog, we’d love to hear from you. Alternatively, if you have any questions about this week’s post, get in touch today. Reach out to us at help@instagiv.com.

 

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 

 

SMS comps

Top Tips for your SMS Campaigns

We have brainstormed and came up with our top four recommended tips for your SMS campaigns. These tips will help your charity in the long run between gaining an extra 25p per pound donated by adding Gift Aid, to increasing your supporter base by enabling consent and gathering opt-ins.

First things first…

Customise your Response Message

Grab the fact that you get to create your own response message by the horns. The bounce back SMS goes straight to the donor’s handset after a donation is made, this is in place to allow you to thank your donors, you get 160 characters to use so we try to encourage our clients to use up this space wisely. Perhaps also say something like “check out how your donations help”, with a URL to your website, this, in turn, will help drive more direct traffic to your charity’s website. Remember, people tend to read and digest the contents on an SMS received to their phone.

Add Channels

Adding channels to your campaigns brings the benefit of knowing which of your marketing channels are working best for you. You have a number for every marketing channel that you have your text code and campaign advertised. Allowing you to analyse your inbound report and view which channel is reaching the biggest audience and drawing in the most donations. If you are spending your budget on paid ads or expensive advertising, channels are perfect for measuring success.

Enable Gift Aid

Our Gift Aid tool allows you to collect names and addresses from your donors. We have two GA collection methods for you to choose from, both of which records and stores all declarations on your platform. You can then view down downloads this information at any time to send to the HMRC for processing. Enabling Gift aid is recommended as you can claim an extra 25% per one pound that is donated to your charity.

Enable Consent

Add the consent feature to your campaigns, this is where you can gather opt-ins from your donors and supporters. InstaGiv has two methods that you can choose from; Implicit and Explicit. With both, all consent records and stored on your platform where you can easily view and download them. Consent is user-friendly and straight forward, for example, rather than having your donor’s text KEYWORD to donate, ask them to text KEYWORD, YES to donate and opt-in- simples!

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.

SMS marketing

The Growth of SMS

It’s no surprise that SMS has grown significantly over the last number of years with the massive growth of technology and smart phones.

Almost everyone owns or has access to a mobile device of some description. For many of us, our phone is like an extension of our hand – we physically could not live without it! (I know I couldn’t).

SMS is the one sure way to get your message across effectively. Almost all texts received to a handset, have an open rate of 100%.

We wanted to find out for ourselves

An online survey was recently carried out by our team, with participants across the age ranges of 22-50+ on the use of SMS and mobile technologies.

We will be creating an e-guide will all of our stats collated together and analysed to give an insight into the world of SMS and peoples preferences.

SMS is actively used by many businesses and charities to market their message across to their audiences.
I remember when I first started to receive such communications from businesses.

It was from my dentist, reminding me of the date and time of my upcoming appointment. I instantly thought to myself how handy that was! If you’re like me, you often forget things and are trying to organise yourself at the last minute, so this reminder text was perfect.

Why use SMS as means of communication or marketing?

The list of reasons why is endless but to name a few;

  • Its personal
    The recipient will open and read the text
    There is no junk/spam box on a mobile phone
    Texts are short, sweet and to the point
    It doesn’t cost a lot and is very effective

SMS within business

Text messaging in the business sector is commonly used for brand awareness, offer discounts, reminders, events, lead generation and notifications.

The charity or not-for-profit sector most commonly uses outbound for;

  • Support for petition
    Rallies for last minute disaster appeals
    Event sup ups
    Gathering opt-ins
    Gathering contact details
    Donation requests
    Advocacy
    Cause awareness

SMs is a great all-round tool for anyone wanting to raise either cause or brand awareness and for those who want to get their message out there instantly.
Our upcoming e-guide will outline SMS in a more detailed fashion, giving you the inspiration to go for it.

Use PSMS in a broadcast or DRTV appeal

Premium SMS
Premium SMS

Trying to get your supporters to actively engage and donate on a regular basis can be tricky – especially heading into the new year. A great way to get in front of them at the right time is with Premium SMS (PSMS).

You can use PSMS in a broadcast outbound text, DRTV appeal, social event or any type of fundraising activity.

Last minute crisis

Sometimes things pop up last minute or unannounced, like an unfortunate incident. This could result in a disaster appeal and you may choose to send a broadcast SMS to gather donations or actively advertise your text code as widespread as possible, to raise awareness and ask for donations.

In terms of the outbound SMS, if you have a list of recipients or a database of opted-in supporters gathered from using our consent feature. You can use these to send an urgent text asking them to reply with one of your donation keywords, to give to your cause. You can use this as a single one-off donation, or to subscribe your supporters to regular giving which is monthly gifts.

To use PSMS as a standard text-to-donate campaign it is as simple as creating your text code, customising your campaign and advertising it to your supporter base. The journey is very straightforward as we like to focus firmly on the donor experience.

Keyword

Texting a donation is as simple as texting a KEYWORD to 70###. While we have fixed price points for all our donation keywords, we also offer our clients the full flexibility of giving their donors the option to give more or less than the default amount, without having to create additional keywords and campaigns.

All donations and responses to outbound texts are recorded on your InstaGiv platform. You can view your inbound report which captures the finest of details right down to the donation amount, date and time and content of inbound texts.

Our regular giving reporting is something we often get praised on also, keeping tabs on donor retention can be somewhat exhausting and hard to do, with our regular reporting we make it so much easier for fundraisers. Our system is equipped to capture and record data right from the number of sign-ups per month, repeat donations, number of SKIP/STOPS per month, cumulative retention statistics and much more.

Quick turnaround

Our turnaround time is very quick. We aim to have all new requests actioned and set up within the same working day. Often enough, we can do this very soon after the request or registration is received.

Find out more information

If you’d like to find out any more information on PSMS, shortcodes, a member of our team would be more than happy to talk you through the process. Fill in the form on our contact page and we will be in touch as soon as possible.

Alternatively, please contact us directly on 028 7087 8220 or email us at help@instagiv.com.

Instagiv
Instagiv

 

Gift Aid

Is your charity making the most of Gift Aid?

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What is Gift Aid?

Gift Aid gives charities the opportunity to get an additional 25% for each £1 donated by their supporters.

Traditionally, declarations were collected via forms, with quite a lot of paperwork involved. Nowadays, it is friction-less, efficient and with a much faster turnaround.

Gift Ait is one of the most important tax reliefs for charities and it’s worth over £1.2 million to the charity sector every year, according to HMRC.

Are you promoting your donors?

Research from HMRC shows that people respond the most when they are prompted to include Gift Aid in their donation. They also responded well when they are told exactly how much was claimed the year previous and what the money went to.

You must be transparent with your donors and tell them exactly how this money is spent. Explain what more could be done if everyone claimed it on their donations.

You also need to ensure your volunteers, and supporters fully understand what the Gift Aid system is and the benefits of it. HMRC have also stated that people who understand Gift Aid are more likely to claim it when donating.

Make the right claims

Education is so important when it comes to Gift Aid. You want to make sure your employees or volunteers are explaining it fully to your donors and supporters in order to eliminate any flawed claims.  It is estimated that around £45 million is made in mistaken claims every year – more than £15 million lost due to fraud.

To ensure you are keeping on top of all your donations, regular audits and internal checks are the best practice. You should also contact long-standing donors who claim gift Aid to ensure they are still paying tax.

How can InstaGiv help you?

We have modernised the way you manage your Gift Aid from your supporters, by solely capturing it with SMS. This integrated system is completely automated, that reports in a user-friendly manner to successfully make your Gift Aid claim with HMRC.

There are two ways to capture it, via SMS or via a web form. You can select which one you prefer in the setup of your campaign in the overview area.

For both methods, the Gift Aid ask is sent via SMS at a delay after the supporter receives their thank your response message. Supporters reply to the text with their details, and for the web form method, supporters click the URL and complete the form.

The Gift Aid ask is sent out at a delay, for example, 5 minutes after your donors receive the thank-you response message. Gift Aid can be claimed on future donations and those made in the past four years.

Addresses are captured and stored in a dedicated area of your InstaGiv dashboard, where you can easily download all declarations, in preparations for processing.

Our form has been approved by the HMRC and is fully compliant. Both the form and the SMS capture all details needed and has the appropriate legal terminology.

Book a demo today

To find out more, request a demo or a call-back today. One of our friendly team members will go over everything in more detail with you.

Alternatively, for more information on this additional guidance on licencing, please contact us at any time on 028 7087 8220 or email us at help@instagiv.com.

Instagiv
Instagiv