Have you been caught up in the text-giving gold rush? If so, slow down for a few minutes and consider a few things.
It might not be as great as it sounds. First, check out this post at Mashable: 5 Real Challenges For Non-Profit Texting Campaigns.
Close examination of texting-based fundraising reveals a wide variety of barriers for 501(c)3s, including the use of mandatory foundations and ASPs (application service providers) to interact with carriers, a stringent vetting process to become accepted, limited donation amounts of $5-$10, limited short codes, and shared costs with partners (in some cases, the wireless carriers). Even after setting up text-based fundraising mechanisms, non-profits face the challenge of limited function integration, and appealing to donors.
There’s another challenge too. The value of text gifts is dramatically lower than gifts in other media. Both the initial average gift and subsequent giving of web, mail, broadcast, and print gifts dwarf those of text gifts.
Here’s a way to think about text giving: If you can use any other response medium, use it. Text giving has the lowest per-donor value there is. One new online donor is as valuable as about 14 new text donors. The figure is similar for new direct mail donors and all other media.
Use text-to-give when you’re sure you’ll get revenue you would not have got otherwise.
Don’t use it otherwise!
Jeff Brooks has been serving the nonprofit community for more than 35 years and blogging about it since 2005. He considers fundraising the most noble of pursuits and hopes you’ll join him in that opinion. You can reach him at jeff [at] jeff-brooks [dot] com.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.