For animal care organizations, keeping donors connected to the animals they care about is at the heart of long-term fundraising support and success. Outreach through mail, email, phone calls, and social media are tried-and-true engagement channels for relationship cultivation and gift renewal, reactivation, and acquisition.
But there’s also the text message. Despite its increased integration into daily life, the use of text messaging for fundraising can come with apprehension and sometimes feel like a channel that’s designed primarily for urgency.
But could texting play an important role in connecting animal care donors to stories of impact and need — and, by extension, strengthening their generosity?
In a recent analysis of TrueSense nonprofit partners, we explored what text messaging can contribute to the donor relationship — and what the data can tell us about when and how this channel can be most effective.
To better understand texting’s impact, we measured incremental lift by comparing donors who received text messages with comparable donors who did not. Here’s what we found:
One of the clearest findings was that the audience receiving the text message had a major impact on results.
Among donors who had given within the past 12 months (active), texting produced measurable incremental giving. For one organization, where 99.5% of text sends went to active donors, gift frequency for donors who received the text messages was 58% higher than for comparable donors who were not texted.
The results were very different when the texting audience expanded beyond active donors. For another organization whose text file composition was 22.5% active donors and 77.5% lapsed donors, deeply lapsed donors, and non-donors, gift frequency was 51% lower than among comparable donors who did not receive texts. In other words, there was no evidence that texting generated incremental giving from this broader audience.
This tells us that texting is most effective when it reinforces an active relationship, rather than attempting to reactivate lapsed and deeply lapsed donors or to convert prospects to donors. For animal care organizations, the most engaged donors may already be responding to direct mail and email, supporting emergency needs, participating in adoption or shelter programs, and following on social media. Texting serves as another touchpoint to keep them connected to the mission, encourage additional gifts, and strengthen their loyalty.
Another finding reinforces not only the importance of whom you’re talking to — but when.
As fundraisers know, donors who have given recently are generally more likely to give again than those whose last gift was months or years ago. Yet there can be a hesitation to make another ask soon after a gift, out of concern that another solicitation could feel like “too much, too soon.”
Our analysis showed that a recent gift was the strongest predictor of text response:
Rather than viewing a recent gift as a reason to wait, animal care fundraisers should view that generosity as a signal to engage and build momentum. Think about texting as a tool to use in the donor lifecycle. Donors who just made a gift may be especially receptive to a timely text, whether the message asks for another gift, shares an impact update, invites them to engage in another way, or simply keeps the organization top of mind.
The analysis also identified common characteristics among text messages that performed well: emotional relevance, urgency, immediacy, and simplicity. This can come to life in texts for animal care by:
Want to fine-tune your messaging strategy further? Our fundraising strategists have identified three features of text messages that build stronger donor relationships and increase giving.
Texting inevitably comes with a trade-off: Some donors will opt out.
However, further TrueSense analyses of approximately 5,000 active donors who opted out of texting found that opting out did not mean that the donor relationship was over. Depending on the organization, 22% to 60% of opted-out active donors made another gift within 180 days.
Animal care organizations don’t need to view every text opt-out as a lost donor. Donors’ care for animals and their commitment to the mission don’t change because they indicate that texts aren’t their preferred way to hear from your organization. Instead, it reinforces the importance of a multichannel donor experience and honoring their communication-channel preferences.
Our findings suggest that text messaging drives incremental giving when it reaches the right audiences, and its value goes beyond the immediate transaction.
To maximize the fundraising impact of your text messages:
The connections among donors, individual animals, and tangible impact are extraordinarily powerful in animal care fundraising. Texting provides a way to communicate quickly, personally, and memorably with donors who are engaged and excited to make life more comfortable, kind, and safe for animals.
To learn more, watch our recent presentation How Text Messaging Fits into a Comprehensive Fundraising Strategy. In this 30-minute recording, our TrueText expert, Katie Damico; and senior digital marketing analyst Alec Polansky unpack their recent research about TrueSense clients’ texting campaign results.