Wildlife SOS is committed to protecting threatened animals in India. That means working to preserve habitat, studying biodiversity, and helping people who live near the animals find new livelihoods so they don’t turn to poaching. Wildlife SOS also takes on animal-welfare issues like elephants being held in captivity for tourist rides, as temple animals, or to walk busy streets with their owners, who sell food for tourists to feed to the animals.
“Part of conserving what’s left of the Indian elephant in the wild means you have to do something about what’s pulling them into captivity,” says Nikki Sharp, executive director of Wildlife SOS USA.
There can be a lot of drama when the organization sets out to rescue a captive elephant that has been cruelly mistreated or is in poor health: undergoing lengthy court proceedings, assessing the animal’s medical condition, loading the enormous creature into a truck, and eventually freeing it at the organization’s sanctuary. Wildlife SOS USA shares each step of the journey through text messages to more than 12,000 supporters, who chart the animal’s progress half a world away.
And they do more than just skim the updates on their phones. When Wildlife SOS runs an emergency campaign to pay for a rescue, roughly 15 percent of the money raised typically comes in by text.
“The people who want to hear from us through a text message, who want to know the minute an elephant’s rescued, they’re the ones who are really, really engaged,” Sharp says.
While the amounts of money raised are still small, texting has become an important fundraising tool for a growing number of nonprofits working on a variety of causes. Relief organizations count on text donations after disasters. Advocacy groups use the messages to alert their supporters about pending legislation or regulatory actions, while nonprofits that run athletic fundraising events text important information to team captains.
It’s a reliable way to get the message out in a crowded communications landscape. People aren’t answering their phones. They’re overwhelmed by the number of emails in their inbox, and direct-mail response rates have been dropping for years.
“Texting is a really good way to get in front of supporters and cut through the noise of other channels,” says Liz Quick, senior vice president for development at Mercy for Animals.
One example: The group ran a campaign that asked regular donors to increase their monthly gift by $5. Ten donors upgraded by responding to an email, compared with 180 who responded to a text — even though the group’s email list is significantly larger.
The biggest benefit of texting is the extremely high open rates. Messages are going to be seen. But fundraising by text message only works with an audience that’s connected to the cause, cautions Christy Noel, vice president for digital marketing services at MobileCause.
If the first text message a nonprofit sends is a request for money, it will fall flat, and large numbers of people will unsubscribe from the list, she says. It’s important to cultivate people first and build their connection to the organization. For example, if a nonprofit plans to send its first text-message appeals on Giving Tuesday, Noel recommends starting to send messages about the organization’s work at the end of October or early November.
A little later, the group can say that Giving Tuesday is coming up and explain how it will use the money it raises.
“Then by the time Giving Tuesday comes, you can use it for an ask,” Noel says.
Started With Advocacy
Advocacy groups were early adopters of the technology, sending text messages to alert activists to pending legislation and urge them to contact elected officials. Over time, organizations realized they could also use texting to inform donors about their work and ask for gifts.
The Human Rights Campaign began using texting in its advocacy more than 12 years ago. The group’s Mobile Action Network now has 400,000 active members. They usually receive three or four texts a month, most of which are advocacy alerts asking them to contact lawmakers or government agencies to weigh in on issues related to LGBTQ equality and other civil rights.
People on the mobile list generally receive one or two fundraising appeals per quarter. But much of the money the Human Rights Campaign raises by text comes in as part of its advocacy.
“We’re driving you to action,” says James Servino, the group’s deputy director for online strategy. “Then after you take action, we provide a donation form where you can chip in and make an additional gift.”
People who are active in a nonprofit’s texting program are 60 to 90 percent more likely to donate than those who receive only email messages, says Jed Alpert, executive vice president of CXM Solutions at Upland Software. Alpert co-founded Mobile Commons, one of the first companies to help nonprofits run texting campaigns; Upland bought the company in 2014.
“That doesn’t just mean donate over mobile,” he says. “It means donate generally.”
Integrated Approach
The key is to incorporate text messages into the group’s overall fundraising, rather than setting up a separate texting program, says Lane Brooks, chief operating officer of Food & Water Watch. Food & Water Watch runs a campaign in the summer to attract monthly donors. Texting is one part of that, along with direct mail, email, and a telephone town hall.
“Everyone’s holy grail is an integrated program,” he says.
Brooks is bullish about text messaging as a tool for communicating with donors and activists. He says that nonprofits’ use of the technology is where their use of email was 17 or 18 years ago. “It’s just scratched the surface of its power.”
When nonprofits are selecting texting vendors, it’s important to understand the technology their systems use. SMS — or Short Message Service — messages have a 160-character limit. MMS — or Multimedia Messaging Service — messages can be longer and allow organizations to include photos and embed videos in their messages.
Feeling Locked In
Wildlife SOS USA uses a system that only allows it to send SMS messages. That means when the group sends a text message alerting supporters that a rescued elephant has arrived at the elephant hospital, it can include a link to an article with more information, but it cannot include a photograph of the animal getting off the truck.
“If we could show that photo or that video and do the ask, I’m sure we would do even better,” says Sharp, the group’s executive director.
She says the organization feels locked into its current vendor because of the large number of monthly donors it has signed up through the system. If it started using a vendor that allows MMS messages, it would have to keep up its current contract, too, because of the monthly gifts coming through the system.
Sharp says it can be tempting to go with a less expensive texting system, but she encourages nonprofits to think ahead. “I definitely think you need to not just think about where you are but where you want to be.”
Another important decision is whether to go with traditional broadcast messaging or try newer technology, often called one-to-one or peer-to-peer texting.
With broadcast messaging, a nonprofit sends a message to its entire list at the same time, usually from a five- or six-digit short code. It can only send messages to people who have opted into the list. Broadcast systems offer features that can let users do things like ask multiple-choice questions, segment their lists, or personalize messages — as in “Hi Sarah” — and sometimes allow for free-form conversation between message recipients and the organization.
One-to-one texting technology, which rose to prominence during the 2016 election, sends messages individually from a nine-digit phone number. Some experts say that because the messages are sent one at a time, groups can send them to people who have not opted to receive them, but it’s a legal question that remains uncertain.
Broadcast systems are less expensive, according to Sandi Fox, founder of Smart as a Fox, a digital-strategy consultancy that works with nonprofits and political campaigns. She recommends organizations never pay more than 1 or 2 cents per broadcast message. One-to-one messages, she says, usually cost 5 to 8 cents per message.
Selecting the right vendor can be complicated. Fox advises charities to ask a lot of questions and do a demo to better understand what each system offers.
“Not all broadcast texting options are the same,” she says. “And not all peer-to-peer texting options have the same functionality.”
Nonprofits can use both types of texting to encourage back-and-forth interaction with the people who receive their messages.
Until July, Suzanne Mooney was a senior team recruitment specialist at Event 360, a company that runs fundraising walks and races for nonprofits. She hesitated when the company first considered using one-to-one texting to recruit and communicate with event participants.
“Texting is a very intimate form of communication,” she remembers thinking. “Are they going to feel like this is invasive if we start texting them?”
The company started small, running a pilot on two of the last events a client was holding that season. Mooney braced for an onslaught of angry responses that didn’t come.
“People were thrilled. They were like, ‘Oh, thanks for the reminder. This is great,’ " she says. “In the first 10 minutes after I had sent those texts out, I had more responses than I’d gotten all year from phone calls.”
Mooney thinks texts lead to a better experience for supporters. Past event participants probably won’t return voicemails to let organizers know that they can’t do the race this year because they’re getting married that day, but they will volunteer that kind of information by text, she says. When that happened, she could tag them in the database so they didn’t continue to get reminders for that year’s race.
Event participants often save the texts and use the number to ask questions as race day approaches. Last fall, a team captain texted to say that her team needed an earlier start time for a fundraising mud run because two members were high-school students going to a homecoming dance after the race. Event 360 changed the start time, and that night the team captain sent a photo of the girls in their homecoming dresses.
Fast Response
Time is of the essence with texting. People expect answers fast, so nonprofits need to be prepared to respond to the messages that come in.
Imagine if a supporter responded to a fundraising text and didn’t hear back for several hours, says Quick, of Mercy for Animals. “That wouldn’t make me feel very confident in giving or make me feel like my gift matters.”
To keep up with the influx of messages from supporters during campaigns, Mercy for Animals sends out 100 to 200 text messages at the top of the hour and then spends the rest of the hour answering those responses. Quick turns to staff members outside the development office to help.
Giving people in other parts of the organization a chance to interact with donors has helped increase their understanding of development and has made fundraisers feel less isolated, Quick says. In nonprofits, she says, the fundraising department is often in the corner raising money. Engaging other staff members to answer texts is a good way to bridge that divide.
Nicole Wallace has been reporting on nonprofits for the Chronicle for more than 20 years. Her areas of expertise include data, technology, fundraising, and innovation. She recently wrote about leaders of color and how they feel about being underestimated and breaking barriers.
