Tag Archives: SMS fundraising

Running happy kids in green field during summer time

What summer fundraising ideas have you got in your pipeline?

Running happy kids in green field during summer time

It might be hard to believe, but summer is almost here, and if you haven’t already, you should start to think about your fundraising ideas for the next few months.

While it might be effective, standing on the street with collection buckets in the pouring rain just does not sound appealing to anyone. Fortunately for us, there are loads of other fundraising ideas that don’t involve a raincoat and an umbrella.

Institute of Fundraising

According to the Institute of Fundraising’s most recent giving report, SMS donations are on the rise, and with the help from Instagiv, we can help you get the most out of your text message campaigns. By creating a fundraising campaign with us, you can take the time and hassle out of fundraising, freeing up your staff and volunteers to use their time much more effectively.

They’re quick and easy, as well as being user-friendly and have a very fast turnaround. Not only that, but Instagiv’s mobile fundraising and engagement platform will let you send donors a response message instantly, thanking them for their donation. You can enter information relevant to your charity response message, as well as adding a short URL link directing more traffic to your website if you wish.

Track in real time

By using Instagiv’s platform, you can log in, receive SMS donations from your keywords and track the progress of the campaigns in real time. Another great feature that we can offer you is to send outbound text messages to anyone who has previously donated and given consent to your campaigns so that you can create a long-standing relationship with your supporters. A quick text message can prove too much more effective and prompt donations than a phone call. Just upload a list of phone numbers to the Instagiv platform, and you can start to send out and schedule messages in advance, which is great when you are busy with other fundraising campaigns.

90% of texts are read within three minutes

While it might seem that text messaging is a thing of the past, 90% of texts are read within three minutes of being sent, and the end of the day will have read 98%. It is still an extremely effective marketing channel, which is also cheap and easy to set up and maintain. The great thing with SMS donations is that no matter how old it is, any mobile phone can receive a text message.

Regular giving, competitions via SMS, address capture, response SMS’, bulk outbound sends – we have it covered.

Why not request a free live demo with one of our experienced team members and see what Instagiv can do for you?

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 

 

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!

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.

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.

A Look at UK Charitable Giving in 2017

The latest CAF report reveals a lot of info on Charitable Giving

The most recent Charitable Giving report from the Charities Aid Foundation has revealed some interesting information about how people in the UK choose to donate to charities.

They interviewed around 12,000 people to build up a picture of the charity sector in the UK in 2017.

The CAF UK Giving 2018 report reveals the extent of charitable giving and provides information on the most popular methods and frequencies of donations.

The report shows that the total amount given to charity in 2017 was £10.3 billion, an increase from 2016’s figure of £9.7 billion.

Charitable Giving – When and How

The CAF also found that November and December were the months that saw the most donations, continuing a trend from 2016. They believe that this can be attributed to various popular campaigns during these months, including Movember and appeals during the Christmas period.

Donating cash continues to be the most common way of giving money to charity, with around 55% of people using this method in 2017. Yet this is slowly becoming less popular.

The report shows that most donors tend to give “from time to time”, around a quarter donate monthly, while just 4% give weekly. Around 13% of those interviewed said they rarely give to charity and about 5% said that they never donate.

Giving online or via text both saw increases over the year, particularly in April, November and December. These increases tended to be related to popular appeals like Comic Relief and Children in Need.

There remains a consistent number giving less regularly, with 13% saying they give to charity rarely and 5% stating that they never give.

Charitable Giving – Who Gives?

Some of the most interesting information in the report concerned the donations of different age groups. The data shows that 16% of people aged 16-24 have not donated or worked with a charity in the past year, compared to just 8% of people aged 65 and over.

The stats also showed that of the younger group of donors, they were significantly less likely to donate on a regular basis compared to the 65+ group.

The older group tend to give the most money and generally donate by direct debit (42%), membership fees (24%), cheque (17%) or by credit card (8%). The youngest group were more likely to support charities through a fundraising event (31%) and by debit card (15%), while those aged 25-44 are the most likely to give via text (14%).

Charitable Giving via SMS

Looking at the stats, text giving is a great tool for charities. The use of cash is decreasing, while younger groups are more likely to donate via text.

Donating via SMS is a really quick and easy way for supporters to donate. There’s no fuss around bank details, or debit and credit cards, as their donation is simply added to their monthly phone bill.

Better yet, it’s a great way for charities to increase the frequency of regular donations. With a simple text, a supporter can sign up to make regular donations either monthly or weekly.

With instaGiv, charities can easily set up customised text giving campaigns using the fully-equipped self-service platform. This gives you the tools to organise competitions via SMS, send mass outbound SMS messages, organise Gift Aid and much more.

On top of that, you’ll get expert support and guidance on campaigns from the instaGiv team.

Mystery Charges? It’s Not Us, Honestly!

Mystery Charges on your account? Let us e

Mystery Charges – The Problem

We often get calls to the office from donors who are (quite rightly) annoyed because some money has been taken from their account that they didn’t consent to.

The transaction usually indicates that instaGiv is the culprit, so we usually deal with an issue like this once a week.

Yet, we are not responsible for this – your mobile phone provider is.

Mystery Charges – The Mix Up

Here’s what happens. You see a spike in your phone bill and you want to know why.

So you ring your network and ask what’s going on. The operator checks your account and notices an unusual number associated with a charge on your account. This is usually in the £10-15 range and is never a round number, there’s always a stray 20p or 50p in there somewhere.

The number involved usually has nine digits (UK mobiles have 11), but the first five digits appear to always start with 70. This indicates that the number is a Charity Shortcode and this is where the confusion starts.

The Charity Shortcode (notice the word SHORT) is a five digit number used for raising funds, typically through SMS campaigns. It looks something like this – 70660.

Yet the number on the bill will look something like this – 700044075. It’s four digits longer. So why do network providers assume that it’s a charity shortcode?

That would be like a postman having a letter for number 12, but decided to post it to number 1 as it starts with the same number.

Mystery Charges – The Confusion Continues

It doesn’t make sense. Yet, time and time again we have people asking (sometimes in quite heated terms) why we have taken money from them without their permission.

Why do nine digit numbers show up on bills rather than the five digit shortcodes?

We honestly have no idea.

There are threads in online forums where other people discuss being charged random amounts of money by gaming app, horoscope sites and more. We somehow get sucked into this vortex sometimes, through no fault of our own.

If you’re reading this, there’s a very good chance you’ve been directed here by a poorly trained mobile network operator.

The unfortunate thing is, we don’t even know how we can help you stop it. We can only advise that you contact your provider again.

But we can honestly say, it wasn’t us that billed you.

New Year, New Ideas at instaGiv

Start the new year right with instaGiv's Text Giving Products

Start 2018 Right with instaGiv’s Text Giving Products

Any regrets of Christmas parties or Christmas overindulgence is fading and people everywhere are starting 2018 with earnest resolutions. It’s a great time to think about how to boost your charity’s donations.

SMS Marketing could be just the thing. It was predicted recently that it will become very big in 2018.

The State of SMS report revealed that 93% of people in the UK now own a mobile phone and if sent a text message, 98% of them will read it by the end of the day.

The report also said that around 50% of companies use SMS Marketing at the moment. This is expected to continue to grow, reaching as high as 92% by the end of 2018.

Why not get ahead of your competition by sorting out your SMS Marketing with instaGiv’s range of Text Giving Products?

Text Giving Products – Single Giving

Single Giving involves texting a code to make a one-off donation. This proved to be one of the most popular products with clients in 2017.

It really comes into its own at big fundraising events. Instead of dealing with loads of forms and cash, you simply ask people to send a single text to short number.

It’s also great for raising funds in response to emergency situations.

Text Giving Products – Regular Giving

Regular Giving is a quick and easy way to sign up donors to donate a specific amount to your cause at regular intervals.

It’s a feature that doesn’t take much time or effort to get ready and can be fully automated once it’s all set up.

Visit our blog on Regular Giving to find out more.

Text Giving Products – Ready for Gift Aid

Our system also makes it easy to manage Gift Aid. This allows charities to receive an extra 25p from the government for every £1 they receive in donations.

Using instaGiv’s platform it only takes 90 seconds for a supporter to donate and sign up for Gift Aid.

Check out our Gift Aid blog for more information.

Text Giving Products – Competitions

Our Competitions feature gives supporters the ability to create and customise contests via SMS. The system can even automatically pick winners for you.

If you have some prizes which you think will peak your supporters’ interest, take a look at our blog on SMS Competitions.

Text Giving Products – Consent

Our Consent Feature helps to ensure that charities have documented consent from their supporters for all of their campaigns.

This is particularly important ahead of the General Data Protection Regulation. The GDPR, which comes into effect in may, will mean that companies need to rethink how they deal with the personal data of EU residents.

Read more about how instaGiv can help with GDPR Compliance in our blog on our Consent Feature.

Find Out More About instaGiv’s Text Giving Products

We are of one the UK’s leading providers of mobile and digital fundraising solution, working with more than 300 UK registered charities.

InstaGiv are passionate about securing as much funds as possible for charities using our mobile and digital tools.

That’s why we have simple and transparent pricing structure that allows charities to scale their fundraising efforts to suit their needs.