Tag Archives: fundraising

How can you optimise your Giving Tuesday fundraising campaign?

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#GivingTuesday is one of the biggest days of the year for the charity sector worldwide, and this year it’s taking place on Tuesday 1st December. Giving Tuesday presents an opportunity for charities to increase donations, engage with supporters, raise awareness of their services and focus attention on campaigns.

This year has been tough on fundraising, with people in harder financial situations. However, it has also been a year that has increased the need for many charities’ services, and a year that has seen people coming together to care for each other and support important causes.

So how can you make sure you are making the most of the day?

  • Get your message out there – Promote your campaign via various channels such as social media, TV adverts, billboards, your website, newspaper and radio. SMS giving keywords are easy to advertise, and supporters can donate anytime anywhere.
  • Use your influencers – Do you have a celebrity spokesperson? Now is a great time to get them to promote your charity and the important work you do.
  • Corporate partnerships – Engage with your corporate partners to run fundraising campaigns around Giving Tuesday. There’s lots of ways they can get involved, from gamification to competitions. They can also help you spread your message to their employees and customers.
  • Launch your Christmas campaign – Launch your Christmas campaign on Giving Tuesday to gain attention and momentum early on.
  • Make it tangible – Connecting your campaign to something tangible can make it feel more real to supporters as they can envision the impact they are having. Let supporters know what different donation amounts could fund or set a target for them to help you reach. 
  • Show how you’re helping – Promote case studies that show supporters the work you have done in the past. This helps supporters feel emotionally invested and engages them with your work long term.
  • Thank your supporters – Make sure you thank supporters for their money, time or any other support they have provided to maintain engagement with them. Outbound SMS is a great way to cut through email competition and increase the chance of your message being read.

Get started today or to speak to our team email help@instagiv.com

Why are charities using text-to-donate?

Fundraising Ideas, SMS Marketing, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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

Fundraising Ideas, SMS Marketing, , , , , , , , ,

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!

8 sleeps until Christmas

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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

Halloween fundraiser ideas

Halloween Fundraising Ideas

Fundraising Ideas, SMS Marketing, , , , , , , , ,

Halloween is fast approaching and there is no time like the present to organise a festive fundraiser. Halloween gives the perfect backdrop for any kind of party or event. Why not spice up your spooky get-together and raise some money for charity too.

To get your creative juices flowing, we’ve come up with 5 great fundraiser ideas. Whether it’s in work or just for fun, you could organise a ghostly gathering this Halloween for a good cause.

Halloween
Halloween

  1. Pumpkin Carving Competition

This is something we’re having in our own offices and I cannot wait. My carving skills are next-level and I think I have a great chance of coming in 1st place.

Get your work colleagues together and gather up your pumpkins and have some fun. Donations can come in the form of an entry fee.

  1. Spooky Sponsored Walk

A well-organised run or walk in your local town is a fantastic way to get everyone together and raise as much money as possible. If you have the funds, you can give out medals to those who cross the 5K finish line.

Again, you can ask people to donate a certain amount to enter the race and ask them to raise their own sponsorship funds a week prior to the event.

  1. Dunking for Apples

If you host a Halloween party every year, why not make it exciting and have a ‘Dunking for Apples’ competition this year. You could ask people to donate for every dunk and raise much-needed funds really quickly.

  1. Pumpkin Pie Bake Off

Forget about the Great British Bake-off, this year it’s all about the Pumpkin Pie Bake Off. Get your friends together and have some fun in the kitchen. After you’ve carved your spooky Halloween decoration, you can use the contents to make a tasty (or not so tasty) treat. The winning pie can win a prize!

  1. Bonfire event

This one might be a bit harder and will only work if you have the space and health and safety for it. A festive bonfire event with sparklers and fireworks could be the event-of-the-year. You could ask your local council are they doing anything for the Halloween holidays and suggest they partner up with a local charity to raise some funds while doing so.

InstaGiv

Using the different holidays throughout the year is always a wonderful way to help promote your cause, by launching a fundraising campaign. At InstaGiv, it is around this time of year that all the different holiday friendly keyword requests start to come in, recently we have had some of our clients request new campaign keywords such as; scary, fright, Halloween, ghost, creepy, Santa, merry, Christmas and much more.

Why are they doing this? Well because SMS is the quickest most effective and user-friendly method of collecting donations. It beats standing out in the freezing wintry weather with collection buckets. In addition to that, each donor gets an instant “thank you” response message, this is fully customisable to the charity, allowing you to increase engagement with your donors further by perhaps, inserting a link into the response message or asking them to opt-in to hear more about your cause.

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.

 

Top tips when organising a fundraiser event

Fundraising Ideas, Success Stories, , , , , , , ,

Organising an event can be stressful and frustrating, never mind organising a charity event. Not only do you have to think about the basics such as venue and invitations, but you also have to worry about collecting cash.

As the age old saying goes, if you fail to prepare you can prepare to fail. (Sorry for the cliché, but it really is true). To help you prepare and get the most out of your fundraising event, we have come up with our 5 top tips that will help you along the way.

Fundraising event

Top Tips

  1. Draft a budget

A budget is important for any event but even more so with a charity event. You need to ensure you are minimising expenditure and maximising the fundraising.

  1. Ensure you have enough time

Time is everything, and if you try and launch your fundraising event too quickly you will only add to the stress and frustration. Give your self a realistic time frame. An absolute minimum of six months is recommended. In this time, you will be able to take care of sponsorships, vendor bookings and selling tickets.

  1. Pick your venue carefully

Location is everything, and you should look at a few different ones before making up your mind. The location will impact the atmosphere of the event and will add to the overall theme so choose carefully.

  1. Look for sponsorship

The more money you can get from sponsors, the more opportunities you will have. The less money you spend on things such as venue costs, printing, marketing materials, refreshments etc, the more money you will have raised for the charity. Spend wisely and try your very best to get a sponsor on board. Don’t be scared to approach business, they might be more than happy to be involved.

  1. Assess your available resources

Do you have enough resources on hand to execute your event? If you need help, make sure you get it and don’t try to do everything yourself. However, before you start to outsource, make sure you research and budget.

If you follow our top 5 tips, we’re pretty sure you’ll organise the best fundrasing event possible.

You’ve got it!

How can InstaGiv help

Our Event Fundraising tool is used for several types of campaigns among our charity clients. If you have supporters fundraising on your behalf, you can easily issue them with a

unique text code, allowing them to gather donations via SMS for your cause.

Unique codes are typically attached to a keyword and you can generate over 100, 000 codes at no additional cost. Each supporter is given a fundraiser code, attached to a keyword such as GIVE_H7Y5, which acts as a tracking device that captures their fundraising journey directly on the platform.

In real time, you can see who is raising which funds and when. We also have what we call, a totaliser page. This is displayed as a search bar and when a keyword + fundraiser code is entered, the total raised will be displayed.

This is commonly used by charities to give to their corporate partners. Our event fundraising tool is used for some of the UK’s biggest annual fundraising campaigns, such as Macmillan’s Coffee Morning. Each year we issue Macmillan with their keywords and unique codes to add SMS as a donation collection tool for their UK wide campaign.

We can create hundreds of thousands of unique codes, and with our built-in formatting and reporting, there are various elements you can use for tracking and matching records on your end such as adding supporters’ full names and giving each code a custom reference.

Find out for yourself

To see a live demo of our software and how easy it is to use, contact us at any time. A team member will be more than happy to schedule this in at a time that suits you.

A day in the life of InstaGiv

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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?

Fundraising Ideas, instaGiv News, SMS Marketing, , , , , , , , , ,

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.