Free Text Fundraising with Text-to-Donate

Our fundraising platform features free, unlimited Text to Donate SMS messages for all US and Canadian-based charity and fundraising campaigns. Supporters simply text a custom code and receive a link to give via your secure fundraising page. It’s so easy and totally free!

What is Text to Donate?

Text-to-donate is using SMS phone texting to donate to a nonprofit organization or charitable cause. Text to Donate allows donors to easily support your organization or charity anytime and anywhere from their mobile phones.

With text to donate, supporters text your fundraising campaign’s unique keyword to a designated phone number. In a return text, they receive a secure link to your website, auction item, or feature to make a mobile donation.

Text to Donate simplifies mobile giving for your donors. In addition to boosting revenue for your organization, text donations enable nonprofits to improve donor engagement and retention. In turn, this will help secure long-term support for your cause.

How Do Nonprofits Use Text to Donate?

Text to donate is becoming more mainstream, but maybe your organization is still wondering how you can put this technology to use. Text-to-Donate can be used in a variety of circumstances, and we recommend using a multichannel approach. Here are some Text to Donate fundraising ideas:

• Dinners and galas: Provide attendees a keyword they can text to purchase items, bid on auction items, and make donations right from their table.
• Use on marketing materials: Display a text-to-give keyword on your printed marketing materials, such as flyers or posters.
• Conference and meetings: When you’re in front of a crowd, giving them text fundraising information is often easier than a URL.
• Church and religious services: Many churches and religious groups ask the congregation to give directly from their pews.
• Promotion on radio and TV: Promote your keyword in radio and TV spots, podcasts, and other media.
• Giving Days: #GivingTuesday and other community giving days that provide a quick chance to fund programs.
• Disaster relief: This is how text to donate was first popularized by the Red Cross, and organizations can still use text to donate to help with emergency relief efforts.
  

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Text to Donate vs. Text to Give

You may have heard of Text to Give and wondered – what’s the difference between Text to Give and Text to Donate? Today, the two terms are mostly used interchangeably.

Text to Give can also be called:

• Text to Donate
• Text to Tithe
• Text to Bid (for online charity auctions)
• Mobile Giving

True Text to Give

True Text-to-give is slightly different from the more common Text-to-donate we support. Text-to-give is a carrier-based mobile fundraising method that allows supporters to donate via text message. Supporters text a keyword to an organization’s shortcode (rather than a full phone number), and a specified donation is added to the supporters’ phone bill. The donation is then added to a donor’s phone bill and not charged to a credit card when the donation is made.

True Text to Give allows donors to donate a specific, pre-set amount, like $5, $10, or $25. The amount is generally low enough to encourage spur-of-the-moment giving. One of the biggest drawbacks of true Text to Give is that it may limit donations since the amount is so low. Many donors would give more when given a chance.

Nonprofit organizations must meet the requirements and guidelines of the Mobile Giving Foundation to be eligible to use Text to Give. Organizations must apply and meet qualifying criteria that many organizations cannot achieve.  

True Text to Give is also expensive to implement. The cost is around $2,000/year for just one keyword and $1,000 for additional keywords.

For these reasons, Text to Give is used mainly by large organizations for emergencies or specific campaigns, such as the American Red Cross and UNICEF. You may have seen this type of text fundraising promoted on TV or national media.

Text to Donate Wins!

Modern text-to-donate, like DoJiggy’s, is much more flexible than text-to-give. There are no minimum fundraising or fiscal requirements for text-to-donate. Small nonprofit organizations and schools can easily use texting to enhance fundraising efforts. Text-to-donate allows supporters to make custom donation amounts, set up recurring donations, donate to specific fundraising events and individuals, and much more.

That’s why Text to donate is a more effective solution because:

• It is much easier and less expensive to set up (free with DoJiggy!).
• Donors generally give more and are not limited to a certain amount with our text-to-give.
• Text to Donate donors can make recurring donations from crowdfunding and donations pages. Recurring donations are not supported with true Text to Give.
• Text to Give can only be made if the donor has one of these phone providers – Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, or T-Mobile. Our text-to-donate empowers supporters from any smartphone, regardless of their cell service provider.
• Organizations receive funds faster. It takes less time to receive donations since you don’t receive them from the wireless carriers, which can take up to 90 days with true text-to-give.

Why Should Nonprofits Use Text to Donate?

Put simply, text-based fundraising works. Text to Donate boosts your organization’s revenue and engagement by making donations easy for busy supporters.

As technology develops and everyday activities become increasingly mobilized, so should your organization’s fundraising strategy. That means employing new marketing techniques and offering new donation opportunities. With text-based fundraising, your organization will meet two very important fundraising goals:

• Reach your donors wherever they are
• Simplify the donation process for donors

Text to Give for Churches

Many churches and religious groups ask congregation members to give from their pews. Often referred to as Text-to-Tithe in the church sector, text-to-give helps churches and communities of faith reach their fundraising goals in an increasingly cashless world. Since church fundraising is largely done via donations, Text to Donate is an excellent option for churches.

How Our Text to Give Works

The beauty of text fundraising lies in its simplicity. Our platform has everything in place, and we walk you through the setup steps. You can enable text donations with just a few clicks.

DoJiggy Text to Give is included at no cost with the following fundraising software:

• Fundraising raffles
• Charity auction websites
• Simple Stores
• Crowdfunding websites
• A-thon campaigns
• Events management and ticketing
• Charity sweepstakes
• Donation pages

P2P Crowdfunding

Auctions

Golf Tournaments

Online Stores

Ticketing

Sweepstakes

Donations

Raffle Fundraising

From your campaign setup:

1. Click the checkbox to enable text-to-give functionality.
2. Enter your desired keyword. This is the word that donors will text to our designated number. It’s best to keep the keyword short and simple to remember yet easy to associate with your cause. Each campaign can have its own keyword.
3. Click CHECK AVAILABILITY to see if your keyword is available. If it’s already in use, consider adding a number or finding an alternate word to formulate a keyword unique to your campaign.

It’s that easy. Then, share this keyword with your supporters, along with our custom phone number. See more details on enabling the function here.

How Do Supporters Make Text Donations?

Once you’ve enabled text to donate, donors simply text the keyword to our number and receive a link to complete their donation. The mobile system supports digital wallets (contactless payments) like Apple Pay and Google Pay to make mobile donations even more effortless. Supporters can select the P2P participant they wish to donate to, buy more items, place bids, make recurring donations, and more.

DoJiggy Text to Donate is only available for US and Canadian mobile phones.

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