3 Successful Examples of Fundraising with Texting

Raising money through instant two-way text programs is easier than most fundraisers realize. Use these proven success stories as a guide and start fundraising with texting to hit your donor targets every time.

We know what makes an effective fundraising message, as well as what tools and strategies work best to increase your chances for success.

Here are three standout examples of successful fundraising with texting for inspiration.

1) New York Governor Race - SMS Fundraising

While multimedia messages (MMS) are generally more effective than plain SMS messages, this first campaign proved that simple no-frill texts can be just as effective if the message copy is strong and directly relevant to the audience receiving it. This fundraising message (shown below) focused on the mandates in New York that caused thousands of people to be fired. 

A key strategy they used for successful fundraising with texting was sending their messages to a small, targeted list of likely supporters instead of casting an overly large net across New York residents. This not only saved the campaign money, but also their valuable time that could be spent focusing on personal conversations with engaged supporters instead of sifting through hundreds of unsupportive responses.

A key feature they used was our URL shortener with Individualized Link Tracking to see exactly which of their contacts interacted with the message, even if they did not respond to it. This increased their accuracy of identifying solid supporters and likely donors with the first-party data sent directly to the campaign by the voters themselves. The URL in this message received 250 clicks out of 3,192 messages delivered, which can be segmented into a unique list and used for future re-targeting.

On this message alone, the campaign raised $1,431 and only spent $264 to send it out - making their ROI $5.42 for every $1 spent.

2) Texas State Representative Race - Leveraging Key Features 

This Republican candidate was running against an incumbent in a district containing a particularly large, deep blue county. Their team was able to compile a list of around 5,000 residents in the area who had been identified as supporting the opposition effort to defund the district's police force and sent them a targeted message directly addressing this topic. 

Similar to the first example, this small targeted send proved to be effective in saving both time and money. Their team also used our URL shortener with Individualized Link Tracking and identified 555 people who clicked the URL out of 5,082 messages delivered, which the campaign can segment into a unique list and use for future re-targeting.

This campaign took their program a step further by including an image. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, including an image or video along with a text significantly increases the chances your audience will connect with the message and understand it more clearly. It is also a chance to show off your candidate with valuable face recognition and include valuable information that may not fit within the 320 character limit.

They also took full advantage of our Tap-then-Send responses with corresponding tags. The team used this tool to tag voters as they shared information about themselves in responses which were then added to update their contact card information. This team did an excellent job staying on top of their responses, equipping them with the ability to filter by these tags for easy segmenting and responding, which they took advantage of later.

Promptly responding to people who showed interest in donating has a profound impact, and is something this team diligently executed. People want to know their donations and sentiments of support are appreciated, so taking the time to reply to someone who responds to you, even if they’re unable to donate, is a surefire way to turn supporters into super supporters who will donate to you again.

Despite the difficulties that came with being a challenger in a tough district, this campaign raised over $1,500 on this single fundraising text (shown above) and spent only $582.45 - making their ROI $2.58 for every $1 spent. 

3) National Activism Organization - Clever Language Use

This activist group sent a targeted end-of-year fundraising text message concisely stating what their mission is and that they needed donations.

Their message (shown above) illustrates the power of thoughtful message construction. They hit the mark on several key best practices when fundraising with texting that have been proven to boost performance: 

• Clear opt-out language is a key factor in improving the delivery rate of your message, and makes recipients feel that they are in control if they do not wish to be contacted. 
• Avoid excessive all caps and exclamatory punctuation to avoid striking the wrong tone.
• The message is written in a conversational way, instead of a formal way resembling an email. Conversational messages resonate better with people. 
• They clearly stated what their donations would go towards and even provided an example dollar amount to contribute.
• Their clever connection of the project name to the suggested contribution amount is a great way to get people’s attention.

This organization spent just under $600 to send its message to 4,068 people. These small targeted sends produce big results - in 2019, this organization pulled in over $4.4 million in revenue.

Bottom Line

We hope you find these examples useful in crafting your own effective messages for successful fundraising with texting at any stage in the election cycle.

If you would like to start using peer-to-peer texting to fundraise and connect with your audience, take the first step today and sign up with RumbleUp at rumbleup.com. Have more questions about RumbleUp? Contact our sales team at (833) 530-4400 or sales@rumbleup.com to discuss how texting can best work for you.