Potentials of mobile messaging in charity sector

Mobile messaging has a dominating presence in all of our lives today. People and organizations recognize that they could make a better use of SMS since mobile messages allow fast and efficient communication that can be benefited from. Therefore, charity organizations can also introduce SMS technology to provide various SMS services to supporters or prospectives. This new method for fund-raising can also serve as a start point for long-term domination relationship. It means that supporters will have the ability to donate not only once but they can keep in contact with you via text messages and can build long relationships. This page details information about the advantages of SMS messaging in charity.

Introduction

Mobile messaging reserves great possibilities for fund-raising and communication to charity and non-profit sector. The purpose of this article is to inspire these organizations to get know more about these opportunities and benefits that are held in text messaging.

Researches show that charity sector does not really apply SMS technology for donations and fund-raising because of some misconception deriving from the fact that there is not enough available information about this method. On this page you can find various utilization possibilities of text messages in this sector and you can also learn the benefits and implementation of mobile technology for charities.

Introduce SMS functionality into charity sector

The last decade has experienced a massive increase in the use of SMS text messages in various fields. Due to this fact this method has become one of the most dominant communication tool in our lives. Mobile ownership has become a necessity and people feel lost when they do not have their mobiles around with them. That is why organizations cannot ignore the importance of cellphones any more. This is the main reason why most of charity organizations has recognized the potential of using mobile messaging for communication and fund-raising. But how you can use it efficiently?

One of the most important utilization possibility of SMS in charity is SMS donation. It means that you can specify a short code or phone number to which people can send an SMS message to donate. These campaigns can be advertised in all types of media and has great success deriving from its simplicity and convenience. Though mobile messaging can be used for other SMS solutions in this sector. There are further opportunities to be discovered.

To apply additional SMS solutions in your organization first you need to collect the mobile phone numbers of supporters, staff and volunteers and store them into a database. Then you can introduce several two-way SMS services for them. It is important because the bidirectional feature of SMS technology allows you to send SMS to supporters and let them react to your messages. In this way you can send messages to supporter, volunteers, or employees for many reasons. You can send them SMS notifications, reminders about forthcoming events, important dates, etc. Furthermore, it is a demanding field both for supporters and your employees so you need to pay attention to appreciate their works. Send them a "thank you" message after an important event or after every donation. This service is so easy to implement but it has great part in making people feel special by taking care of them personally via their phone.

You can also makes it possible for people to send text messages to your organization beside SMS donation. In this way they can be involved in campaigns, and other activities. You can launch SMS voting and SMS quizzes to people. It means that people can vote via SMS messages to various issues. So this method is excellent to know what supporters and people think about particular issues. These methods allow people to express their desires and help engage them. In this way you can find new supporter and you can understand what they think about the issue. Results can be used for your next campaigns to be more effective.

So it can be stated that SMS messaging is able to increase the interaction with supporters and allows response mechanism, as well. Furthermore, it can be the key for engaging a younger generation. Mobile messaging offers endless advantages that can be exploited to improve efficiency.

SMS donations

SMS donations offer easy, fast and efficient method for donation. It only takes seconds and people do not have to waste their time filling forms with card details on paper, online or over the phone. SMS messages are the excellent tools for spontaneous donations and this solution also allows to track all the transactions and communications (e.g. with the help of a database).

One of the main advantage of mobile messaging compared to other spontaneous donations (like collecting boxes) is that SMS messages provide the possibility for build a long-term relationship with the supporter. It is due to the fact that it allows two-way communication in an efficient way. Furthermore, people can feel their money has been sent to an exact case not just has been handed over without knowing the end result. Those organizations who miss to use SMS technology risk missing younger audiences as they can be attracted by modern ways of donation.

Advantages offered by SMS messaging

SMS messages have several advantages that make this method one of the most effective communication tool. SMS messages are personal, proactive and are always just for one person. In other words you can be sure that your sent SMS message will be received on the recipient's phone and therefore only the intended person will read it not disturbing others with it. This kind of method requires action not just imparts information. Furthermore, it has the benefit of being instant, private and useable anywhere at anytime. These facts make it spontaneous and discreet at the same time. Text messages can also make your supporters, volunteers feel special. You only need to send an SMS message reminding them to an event or campaign, finally send them a thank you message. These excellent features of SMS messaging ensure that SMS services will inspire your work and make it more effective than ever.

Ozeki NG SMS Gateway can be obtained by opening the download page: Download Ozeki NG SMS Gateway!

Utilization possibilities of SMS messaging in charities

Use SMS messaging for donation
Encourage donations via SMS
Send SMS notifications and alerts to supporters via SMS about key events
Use mobiles as responsive mechanism
There is a big potential in targeting young people via SMS (reach and engage with a younger generation)
Send charity information or updates via SMS
"Thank you" messages to supporters or volunteers via SMS
Attract younger audience
SMS voting, SMS quizzes to involve supporters
SMS reminders

How to implement SMS functionality

To operate a stable and really effective SMS system, you need a powerful SMS gateway software that has an outstanding performance. Such an SMS gateway is Ozeki NG SMS Gateway. This software product needs to be downloaded and installed to the PC. After the installation you can start to operate your SMS system and provide advantageous SMS services for supporters and people.

sms system architecture — Figure 1 - SMS solutions for Nonprofit and charity sector

Costs

There is a common misconception that the cost of making a donation via SMS would take money away from fundraisers because the cost of the SMS can also be given to fundraisers. Today service providers offers really favorable tariffs for text messaging that are even cheaper than calls. As SMS messaging offers two-way communication this fact can be useful both for your organization (since you can send bulk messages at low costs) and supporters can donate through a comfortable and cost-effective way as they do not have to waste time for credit card or other types of transactions.

Conclusion: SMS solutions for nonprofit charity sector

Since SMS messaging has become an essential part of our lives it cannot be ignored as an important tool of interaction. They are welcomed even in important political and electoral campaigns because of their discretion and accessibility. In charity sector there are great utilization possibilities of mobile messaging that allow efficient fund-raising and relation building beside its marketing and recruiting features. If you implement Ozeki NG SMS Gateway to provide SMS solutions you will gain a stable, reliable and cost-time efficient SMS system that will improve your daily work to a great extent.

Download the free trial of Ozeki NG SMS Gateway right now to see how it works in practice!

For more information please contact us right now at: info @ ozekisms.com.