How the non-profit industry and SMS messaging can work hand in hand

Bulk SMS for non-profits

There are two things those in the non-profit industry don’t have: time and money. Well, they likely don’t have many other things, either. But they really don’t have those two things and that’s where SMS messaging could be useful.

SMS is a cost-effective way for non-profits to communicate with donors, volunteers, and many more. It provides an easy to manage way of communicating with everyone essential to running a charity. SMS enables you to increase efficiency and decrease costs.

In the non-profit sector, there is always more to be done, more money to raise, and more people to help. SMS allows you to do more while costing less. In fact, there are so many ways that the non-profit industry and SMS messaging work well together, we’ve created a list of some of the most effective ways.

Use SMS messaging to communicate effectively

SMS is more personal than email. Communicate with donors and fundraisers in this way and they’ll feel like they’re part of the non-profit’s mission. With a near perfect open rate of 98%, SMS is the best way to ensure a non-profit’s message is communicated to the right people.

Call for urgent help

Sometimes, in times of emergency, it might be necessary to reach out for urgent help. It might be necessary to call for volunteers, to have additional food donated or call for last-minute volunteers for a family in need. The immediacy of SMS makes it perfect for responding to urgent requests.

Text to donate

It’s essential that non-profits make donating as simple as possible for donors. An easy way to do that is to offer a text to donate option. Says Non-profit PRO: “Modern text-to-give solutions let donors opt in with a short code to receive a message with an embedded link that points to the donation page. After the one-time registration, where the donor fills in credit card details, future donations are as simple as texting the donation amount to the short code (i.e. a donor can donate $10 to your non-profit by texting 10 to 55555) after the one-time registration.”

Events

SMS messaging is the perfect way of communicating about events with donors and fundraisers. With SMS, they’ll know all the details of the event well before the time. And with two-way-messaging, attendees will be able to RSVP easily.

SMS marketing

It’s possible for non-profits to use SMS marketing to communicate information about fundraising drives and to let donors know about progress toward goals. In this way, they’re updated throughout the process. Being updated in this way builds trust and allows donors to see that their funds are being used as intended. And once you reach your fundraising target, use SMS to let donors and funders know.

Manage volunteers

Bulk SMS makes it simple to send messages to an entire complement of volunteers. In this way it’s possible to issue reminders about shifts, let volunteers know about an open shift that needs to be filled, and send reminders about events in specific locations.

During events, SMSes can be used to communicate with volunteers about specific donors who need to be urgently attended to. In addition, SMS can be used to take the pressure off of volunteers who previously would have had to spend time making phone calls to donors or, even more time-consuming, meeting with people in person.

As you can see, by making use of services like bulk SMS and two-way messaging, there are many ways that the non-profit industry and SMS messaging work well together. If you’re curious about how bulk SMS can be used creatively in other industries, read our recent article. It highlights how SMS can benefit those in many different industries including healthcare, government, and insurance.