“For the organizations with whom we partner, adding Hustle to our communications mix has increased engagement, reinstated donors, enhanced revenue in other channels, and even triggered gifts of $1,000 or more. For organizations who are serious about focusing on donor-centric strategies, I’d enthusiastically recommend Hustle as the right way to level up your current efforts.”
Chrissy Hyre, Vice President, Fearless Mobile Strategies
Your next fundraiser is exciting and working towards a special cause. Get the word out! Positioning your organization to secure long-term funding success in many cases means approaching events such as fundraisers through a “hybrid” or multi-layered marketing approach, including tools specially designed to have personal, authentic conversations that build and strengthen relationships and connections with community members, whether that be in-person or virtually. While your organization may be well versed with channels like phone, email, or direct mail, have you considered conversational peer-based texting? SMS has a 98% open rate compared to email marketing, and texting is America’s #1 preferred communication channel. Peer-to-peer texting is a 1:1 channel used to drive engagement, connection, and action at scale. Human-powered texting is flexible and can be used to inform, endorse, engage, and promote your next capital campaign, expand your donor pool, or wrap up annual giving.
Regardless of size, organizations can accelerate donor engagement using a fundraising communication roadmap designed to forecast messaging according to outreach channel for more personal, authentic conversations that connect people with your cause. See what you’ll need and how your organization can integrate peer-to-peer text messaging into your fundraising communication roadmap below.
Nonprofit Fundraiser Communication Roadmap Components
- Communication channels
- Segmented contact lists
- Dedicated web presence (website or landing page)
- Core event messaging
- Content calendar
- 2 months
Nonprofit Fundraising Communication Roadmap
2 Months (6–7 Weeks) | Personalized Event Invitations: A little over a month ahead, it’s time to introduce (or annually remind) your target audience about your upcoming event. You may do this now through an email blast or via your social media feeds. From a P2P texting perspective, this is the opportunity to text your audience a personalized event invite answering the “why” behind your event in a concise, cause-charged message. Sequence text message outreach is congruent to the other channels to offer audiences a “closed-loop” of event introductory information. Be concise and choose your words wisely.
- Deliverables: 1 email or 1 phone call, 1 social message (per platform), 1 text message
1.5 Months (5 Weeks) | Follow Up Reminder: To the entire audience lists, share a landing page link or website regarding the upcoming event and showcase facts — when, where, who, what, and why. While social media platforms are an excellent option for multi-message sharing in a single day, remember that not everyone uses social media and might miss out. Always think quality messaging over quantity blasting. At this point, your organization may also need to recruit support. Share timelines, training event schedules with contact information in a separate message to assist in audience segmentation.
- Deliverables: 1 email, 2 social posts (per platform), 1 P2P text message
1 month (4 Weeks) | Showcase Organization Impact: Now that you’ve announced the fundraiser and have a messaging cadence per communication channel, roughly a month out is a good opportunity to continue exhibiting how your fundraisers help you mobilize change. Images, infographics, videos, and stories of impact are powerful mediums for sequential peer-to-peer text messages focused on conveying the importance of your work and its continued support by the community.
- Deliverables: 1 email infographic, 2 social posts (per platform), 1 P2P text message
3 Weeks | Authentic Engagement: A few weeks away from the fundraiser, continue widening the doorway of communication you’ve opened through introductory emails, text messages, phone calls, or in-person visits with more human-powered texting. Your messaging cadence should increase at this point. Open P2P texting channels with individual audience members allow your organization to troubleshoot, ask specific questions, gain unique insights, share important registration reminders, or continue donation asks through human-powered personal texting conversations.
- Deliverables: 1 email, 2 social posts (per platform), 4–5 P2P text message
2 Weeks | Gauge Interest: It’s time for a performance check. Two weeks away from the event, review your analytics and place your finger on the pulse of the RSVP target. More than you anticipated? Great, your multi-channel orchestration is working! Start asking your audience to spread the word. Not enough attendance? You still have time to create and share more personalized peer-to-peer text messages to encourage engagement. Hustle’s web and mobile platforms put analytics and reporting at your fingertips, giving you insight into campaign performance, target audience engagement, conversations, and next best action steps for the campaign.
- Deliverables: 1 email, 1 social post (per platform), 3–4 P2P text message
1 Week | Last Chance: Now is your last chance based on real conversations and analytic trends to drive audiences towards registering and/or donating. Utilizing peer-to-peer text allows organizations the agility to use analytical insights to pivot and communicate simple impact statements, registration links, donations links, and more in addition to pre-scheduled information, continuing the conversation through a 1:1 channel of the moment platform. If you haven’t already, it’s also time to queue a post-event thank you email.
- Deliverables: 1 email, 1 social post (per platform), 2–3 P2P text message
How does peer-to-peer text messaging impact fundraiser performance? Hear more from our customers…
“We’ve used Hustle for both fundraising campaigns and general engagement with our audience members. Both have been very successful in starting conversations and answering questions in a very personal way. Our texters all feel like they are really getting to know the community members who text us back.”
Taylor Beard, Associate Director of Direct Response Fundraising- KQED
“Hustle proved to be a very cost-effective means of acquiring new donors from a pool of active prospects and compares extremely favorably with costs per acquired donor in our primary acquisition channel, direct mail.”
Jeff Zick, Response Fundraising Manager, PETA
Add Hustle To Your Fundraiser Communication Roadmap
Hustle is a conversational peer-based text and video messaging platform empowering nonprofits across the country to engage their community of supporters, volunteers, and members to increase participation and lock long-term funding. It starts with a roadmap for success chalked full of tools optimized to slice through the virtual noise of the day-to-day and nurture long-term donor relationships.
Contact us today, and let’s start optimizing engagement with your donors!
