Courses |

Communications

Text for fundraising

The goal of this course is to provide you with the knowledge to run your own texting program. Our hope is that inside this course and the supplemental materials we have included, you will find everything you require, whether it be for launching your first message, to building an integrated multi-year strategy for your organization. ​

Over the past twenty years, text messaging has morphed into the most utilized communication tool between individuals. It’s equal parts digital and direct communication, and offers a 97% open rate. It’s rapidly changing year to year, with all signs pointing to continued growth. It’s a way to personalize a message to just one individual, and a way to push a message out to many people at the same time.​

Understanding how to use this channel to your advantage will only help take your program to a new level. Congratulations on taking this step and making this investment in your overall strategy. 

Learning objectives

Texting Groundwork

Understand why texting is important for fundraising and the basics of how it works

Creative

How to write text messages and how to design corresponding media for MMS texts

Audience targeting

Learn which audiences should receive texts, how to think about segmentation and suppressions, and how to grow your text list

Curriculum Outline

• Intro/101: 
  • Why text is an important channel
  • Different methods of texting and types of texts
  • Use cases
  • Cross-channel integration
• Launch a campaign
  • All the steps to launch a campaign
  • QC
  • Tips & tricks for texting
  • Details to know about platform setup
  • Using a call center
• Audiences
  • Who to target & suppress
  • Segmentation   
  • Personalization
  • How to acquire phone numbers
• Self-paced activity: Budgeting
  • Metrics you need 
  • Discussion of the budgeting template
• Planning a year of your text program​
  • What you’ll need to do to prepare
  • Campaigns to include in your program
  • Other types of texts to consider including
  • Examples of the most crucial types of texts for fundraising
• Scriptwriting ​(this section by Luna Zeidner)
• Self-paced activity: scriptwriting ​(this section by Luna Zeidner)
• MMS 
  • When to use MMS
  • Design tips
  • Video
• Analysis​
  • KPIs to track & how to do it
  • Benchmarks
  • A/B testing
  • ROI
  • Matchbacks & lift tests