CNIB Case Study

CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind) is a Canadian non-profit organization that delivers innovative programs and powerful advocacy to empower people impacted by blindness to live their dreams and tear down barriers to inclusion. Their work is not possible without the support of donors across the country.

For Giving Tuesday 2023, CNIB decided to add Stratcom’s text service as a channel to their multi-channel fundraising strategy.

Highlights

Engagement rate of

3.06%

with over half of all respondents (54.6%) pledging to make a donation

Final ROI of over

287%

$10,230

raised for Giving Tuesday directly via SMS

with an average gift size of around $60

Step 1: Planning & scripting

CNIB worked with Stratcom to draft and refine a Giving Tuesday SMS script for the planned broadcast, prompting recipients to give generously in honour of the day. The script highlighted both a special one-day match offer (all donations doubled up to $150,000) and a specific way in which the funds raised would be used (training three puppies to become guide dogs, becoming six dogs with the donation match).

Step 2: Roll-out

The text messages were sent out to a small selection of CNIB’s supporters. The initial text prompted recipients interested in making a donation to reply with the word ‘GIVE’. Those who did, received a follow-up message with a unique donation link with click tracking for the SMS campaign. Anyone who sent back a reply other than the ‘GIVE’ keyword received a response in real time from one of Stratcom’s experienced peer-to-peer SMS agents.

Chat Conversation: Sender, “Hi Parnaz, this is Priyanka from CNIB. Today is Giving Tuesday! TODAY ONLY donations are worth DOUBLE! Can you help us reach our goal of transforming THREE PUPPIES into life-changing guide dogs for Canadians with sight loss? If yes, reply GIVE.” Suporter, “GIVE” Sender, “Thank you for your incredible generosity there! Here’s the link to donate: https://cnib.akaraisin.com/ui/gt23/donations/start”

*Sample text exchange

Our
Work

Step 1:
Planning & scripting

CNIB worked with Stratcom to draft and refine a Giving Tuesday SMS script for the planned broadcast, prompting recipients to give generously in honour of the day. The script highlighted both a special one-day match offer (all donations doubled up to $150,000) and a specific way in which the funds raised would be used (training three puppies to become guide dogs, becoming six dogs with the donation match).

Step 2:
Roll-out

The text messages were sent out to a small selection of CNIB’s supporters. The initial text prompted recipients interested in making a donation to reply with the word ‘GIVE’. Those who did, received a follow-up message with a unique donation link with click tracking for the SMS campaign. Anyone who sent back a reply other than the ‘GIVE’ keyword received a response in real time from one of Stratcom’s experienced peer-to-peer SMS agents.

Chat Conversation: Sender, “Hi Parnaz, this is Priyanka from CNIB. Today is Giving Tuesday! TODAY ONLY donations are worth DOUBLE! Can you help us reach our goal of transforming THREE PUPPIES into life-changing guide dogs for Canadians with sight loss? If yes, reply GIVE.” Suporter, “GIVE” Sender, “Thank you for your incredible generosity there! Here’s the link to donate: https://cnib.akaraisin.com/ui/gt23/donations/start”
* Sample Text exchange

This was a test for CNIB – it’s the first time we’ve incorporated SMS into our Giving Tuesday fundraising activity. Included were a mix of active and lapsed monthly and annual donors. We were very happy with the results and the strong ROI! Being able to rely on Stratcom’s peer-to-peer SMS agents to manage responses during such a busy time of year was also very much appreciated. I look forward to running the SMS campaign again this year."

CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind)

The Results

CNIB’s 2023 Giving Tuesday campaign was a huge success with the SMS campaign alone yielding donations reaching $10,230.

Encouraged by the runaway success of leveraging text messaging to raise funds, CNIB is also using the channel to boost their other fundraising work, such as engaging with and warming up potential donors via SMS prior to a telefundraising campaign.

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