Data can help inform your nonprofit’s approach to text-to-give and drive greater fundraising results. Use these tips to boost your text messaging strategy. 

 By Mike Snusz

In order for your nonprofit to effectively reach supporters via a text donation campaign, you will need to simulate an authentic, one-on-one communication experience. The best way to personalize your messages and create highly tailored donation appeals is to leverage donor data. 

A text donation campaign informed by donor data is more likely to inspire donors to act and bring in greater fundraising results. By segmenting your contact lists into subgroups based on data insights, your nonprofit can produce relevant text messages and donation requests that will resonate with supporters. 

Use these donor insights to support your nonprofit’s text-to-give strategies and drive a greater ROI: 

• Donation frequency
• Donation recency
• Donation amount
• Demographics
• Level of involvement

To track these metrics and set your text-to-give campaign up for success, you’ll need the right tools. Tatango’s guide to nonprofit text messaging recommends looking for a text fundraising platform that will readily sync with your nonprofit’s CRM and provide your organization with real-time campaign analytics and performance tracking. This way each donor action will provide more information about their behavior and persona, allowing your nonprofit to leverage this data in the future for more targeted communications. 

Explore the following donor insights to make your text donation campaigns more engaging. 

Donation frequency

How often do your donors give to your organization? Do they give on a recurring basis? Annually? Monthly? Or, perhaps your organization has donors who used to donate regularly, but you haven’t received a contribution from them in a while. On the other hand, you may have one-time donors who never renewed their support.

With the help of your donor management software and text fundraising platform, track and use these data insights to inform how you frame your donation requests. Donation frequency can guide the type of segments your organization makes. For instance, you might create text donation segments that target:

• Lapsed donors. Re-engage donors who you have not heard from in a while by reminding them why they should support your cause. Create a text donation segment that discusses upcoming projects and how your nonprofit is making a difference in its community. 
• Monthly donors. Your monthly donors are already avid supporters of your cause, so you should go beyond sending a generic request to give to your organization. Instead, you can encourage these donors to increase their monthly giving amount. 
• Recurring annual donors. Your nonprofit likely has donors who only give once a year. Create a separate segment to motivate these donors to sign up for monthly giving to maximize their impact and make a greater difference. 

As you send requests to these different subgroups, track any changes that take place in the frequency or amount of their donations. These insights will let you know whether your strategies are working or if you need to rework your content and segmentation strategies to better appeal to donors. 

Donation recency

Tracking donation recency can indicate whether donors are actively engaged in your fundraising efforts or if they need more prompting to reconnect with your organization. Plus, donation recency lets you know when it might be the right time to solicit another donation.

For example, suppose you have a donor who submitted a text-to-give donation to your organization last week. Your nonprofit is now hosting a text fundraiser to coincide with your upcoming fundraising gala. It would not be optimal to immediately ask this donor for another donation, as this can overwhelm your donor and make them feel more like a source of revenue and less like a valued supporter. 

Instead, you might choose to send a reminder in the middle of your text-to-give campaign. Make sure to consistently express donor appreciation and explain how the funds from this campaign will be used; this will help donors stay engaged and foster strong relationships. NXUnite’s guide to donor recognition suggests thanking donors as soon as they give to assure them that their important contributions have not been overlooked.  

Donation amount

Create segments based on your donor tiers so your donation requests are more likely to be met. For example, your nonprofit should create separate segments for your:

• Small donors. 
• Mid-level donors.
• Major donors.

This way, the donation amount you’re requesting in your text messages is tailored to the individual and makes sense based on their past giving amount. For instance, if a supporter gives $100 every year, it would be unreasonable to try to upgrade their giving amount to $500. Instead, you might ask them to give $15 a month instead of a lump sum of $100, which would give your organization $180 a year.

Demographics

Demographic data, such as age and location, can make it easier to build relationships with donors. 

For example, a higher education institution may take advantage of this data while using text-to-give to raise scholarship money for current students. To better target its messages to alumni, the university might create a segment based on milestone anniversaries, such as former students’ 5-, 10-, or 15-year anniversary since their graduation. In this instance, age data can help the university leverage relevant milestones to build an emotional connection and encourage alumni to give. 

Continuing with this example of a college text-to-give fundraiser, the university could also create segments based on the locations of its alumni. For example, they might create a segment for alumni who still live near campus so they could invite them to sporting events and alumni gatherings year-round. Then, they could create a separate segment for alumni living outside of the local area and send reminders for major events that often bring alumni back to campus, such as homecoming. 

Level of involvement

Keep track of supporters who attend your events, volunteer at your programs, or get involved in other key ways. By doing so, you can create segments that are relevant to your supporters and send them information they would be interested in. 

For example, your nonprofit could create a segment for volunteers. Here, you can highlight your volunteer needs and explain how volunteers can further their involvement by giving. 

You can also break down this volunteer segment into supporters who frequently volunteer and supporters who used to volunteer but have not done so in a while. This is a great opportunity to re-engage lapsed volunteers with your cause, either by inviting them to volunteer again or to donate revenue in lieu of donating their time.

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By tracking donor insights with the help of your CRM and text messaging platform, your organization can develop compelling text-to-give campaigns, leading to stronger relationships and more revenue for your cause. Do your research to find the best technology solutions that will meet your nonprofit’s unique needs and streamline the data collection and fundraising processes. This way, your nonprofit can save time and focus on generating text messages that inspire giving. 

Mike Snusz brings 19 years of digital fundraising experience to his role as Director of Nonprofit Customer Experience at Tatango, a text messaging platform for nonprofits and political campaigns. Prior to Tatango, Mike spent 15 years at Blackbaud leading a team of digital consultants that helped nonprofits improve their online fundraising, monthly giving, email marketing, and peer-to-peer fundraising programs. Mike started his nonprofit career managing the Ride For Roswell from 2003 to 2005 in his hometown of Buffalo, NY.