It’s common for small to midsized nonprofits—those with annual budgets of less than $1 million—to struggle with cash flow.
Depending on your nonprofit’s typical giving patterns, cash flow might fluctuate seasonally, spiking at year’s end and dropping off midyear. In fact, for many nonprofits, year-end inflow accounts for up to 50% of annual donations, while, of course, expenses such as salaries, rent, and other operational costs remain constant throughout the year. Especially in today’s unstable economy, delayed grant disbursements can contribute to cash-flow shortfalls as well, as can individual donor uncertainty. The result is that many smaller nonprofits are operating with just a few months’ reserves—or less.
Whatever your nonprofit’s unique cash-flow challenges may be, text giving can help. It’s a simple tool that empowers you to stabilize cash flow, inject extra funding when needed, and even grow donor rolls and revenue overall. In this article we’ll explain how text giving works and touch on how it can be used to generate real-time donations, increase impulse giving, bring in more recurring donors, and widen the donor funnel. When strategically layered in with your other fundraising channels, text giving is more than a handy gadget—it’s a fundraising powerhouse.
Roc Giving, powered by Payroc, is a digital giving platform designed for small to midsized nonprofits. We support your missions by providing an affordable service with intuitive tools, just the right amount of features (including text giving), integrated payment processing, transparent pricing, and modern reporting and user interfaces. We’re happy to pay it forward by sharing our text giving expertise.
Text giving is a form of mobile fundraising that allows donors to contribute to your nonprofit by clicking on a link you text to them. How easy is that?
Text giving (also called text-to-give) is a form of mobile fundraising in which donors contribute to your nonprofit by sending a text message, or SMS (short message service), from their phone. How easy is that?
Text giving is becoming increasingly common because donors, like all of us, rely on their phones for so many tasks and services already. This means that they’re comfortable with the technology and not only enjoy but expect the speed and convenience it provides.
If you’ve never set up a nonprofit text giving channel, never fear. With the right interface, it’s a simple technology that anyone can master.
Here are the steps your nonprofit would use to take advantage of text giving:
Now let’s talk about the many fundraising benefits of having an active text giving channel.
For nonprofits, text messages boast a 99% open rate, with 90% read within three minutes. Because your digital giving platform’s text giving tool allows you to send out asks that will often be read and acted upon instantly, the process can generate timely donations.
So if you have an immediate need, you can reach out via text to ask your donors to help fill that need. And boom—instant fundraising.
What’s more, text giving funds are often deposited with days, improving liquidity compared to pledges and even recurring giving.
Because text giving is simple and immediate, donors often feel compelled to say yes in the moment, especially during events or in response to high-emotion news or social media prompts.
Many donors enjoy the instant gratification of text giving. They also like the convenience, so be sure your digital giving platform’s donor-facing text giving process is seamless and friction-free. And because texting feels familiar and low-risk, donors tend to trust the process.
These spur-of-the-moment gifts can generate welcome spikes in funding that can help carry your organization through the leaner months.
Your impulse text givers can often be persuaded, via a simple opt-in checkbox, to make their gift a recurring monthly gift. One click or tap and you have a new sustaining donor.
Also keep in mind that you can use your text giving list to regularly update donors via text without a specific ask. Texting is often a perfect way to share brief news, celebrate successes, tease impact stories, and prepare donors for upcoming asks. And if your digital giving platform’s text giving tool also includes MMS (multimedia messaging service), you can embed static images (think photos and logos), gifs, and video clips into your text messages, creating a visual, emotionally compelling, and mobile-friendly donor experience. This engagement strategy prepares one-time text givers to become recurring givers the next time they are presented with the opportunity.
Happily, once you have a recurring donor, you can also leverage other engagement channels to communicate with them, secure their loyalty, and encourage them to bring in more recurring givers. In other words, text giving can be an easy entry door that multiplies connection and thus fundraising in many ways.
Younger donors, especially, are attracted to text giving. They often don’t use cash or checks, are mobile natives, and are completely comfortable paying for things by text.
Plus, text giving is so easy, anyone might click and donate—even people who don’t think of themselves as philanthropic givers. This makes text giving links, QR codes, and asks especially great for live events, social media campaigns, and any moment when potential donors may be on their mobile phones.
If you start with entry-level asks via text, you may be able to bring in a larger number of first-time givers. After that, you can use your nurturing campaigns to develop your entry-lever givers into larger, recurring supporters over time.
Payroc’s digital giving platform, Roc Giving, includes the text-giving tools small to midsized nonprofits need to ramp up sustaining cash flow, build donor rolls, and generate more recurring funding. If you have questions about text giving, our experts are here to help. Even though we’re a technology company, we believe in people helping people. Our dedicated Roc Giving team is here to offer personalized, human consultations and support. Visit https://payroc.com/solutions/roc-giving/ or contact us at rocgiving@payroc.com to get started. You can also schedule a demo here.