The Alzheimer Society of Canada (ASC) is a Canadian health charity that raises funds from donors to support research into Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia and provide services and programs to people living with dementia and their caregivers. On Giving Tuesday, an annual event that recognizes the power of giving around the globe, ASC’s previous fundraising strategy entailed email and live phone components to solicit donations from supporters.
ASC sought to reach a wider audience of potential donors to increase donations and they were interested in Stratcom’s PROMPT.io text messaging platform as a complement to their existing fundraising strategy for Giving Tuesday. ASC and Stratcom first tested this integrated strategy for Giving Tuesday 2020. Results were promising, and as a result, ASC decided to incorporate texting as a channel again for Giving Tuesday 2021 and 2022.
Step 1:
Planning & scripting
Stratcom worked with ASC to develop the script for a series of bilingual (French and English) text messages from ASC’s Chief Science Officer, Dr. Saskia Sivananthan, that were rolled out alongside ASC’s fundraising emails and live phone calls. In 2020, 10,000 previous donors and supporters of ASC were texted; this was increased to 15,000 in 2021, with recipients segmented by time zone to ensure they received the messages at their most suitable times. In 2022, the number of supporters contacted increased further to reach 26,000. Deloitte provided list management support and the payment gateway for donations.
Step 2:
Roll-out
The first text message soliciting donations was sent out on the morning of Giving Tuesday. Recipients were prompted to reply with the keyword ‘GIVE’ to receive a link to ASC’s website where they could make a donation. A reminder text was also sent out in the afternoon to those individuals who had not yet donated.
On Thank You Thursday, which occurred the first Thursday after Giving Tuesday, a follow-up text message was sent to all donors with a link to a video with a personal message from Dr. Sivananthan, thanking them for their donation and emphasizing the positive impact they’ve made.
Our
Work
Step 1:
Planning & scripting
Stratcom worked with ASC to develop the script for a series of bilingual (French and English) text messages from ASC’s Chief Science Officer, Dr. Saskia Sivananthan, that were rolled out alongside ASC’s fundraising emails and live phone calls. In 2020, 10,000 previous donors and supporters of ASC were texted; this was increased to 15,000 in 2021, with recipients segmented by time zone to ensure they received the messages at their most suitable times. In 2022, the number of supporters contacted increased further to reach 26,000. Deloitte provided list management support and the payment gateway for donations.
The first text message soliciting donations was sent out on the morning of Giving Tuesday. Recipients were prompted to reply with the keyword ‘GIVE’ to receive a link to ASC’s website where they could make a donation. A reminder text was also sent out in the afternoon to those individuals who had not yet donated.
On Thank You Thursday, which occurred the first Thursday after Giving Tuesday, a follow-up text message was sent to all donors with a link to a video with a personal message from Dr. Sivananthan, thanking them for their donation and emphasizing the positive impact they’ve made.
The support that Stratcom and the PROMPT.io teams provided was great for the Giving Tuesday SMS campaigns. The Alzheimer Society of Canada was able to grow the revenue threefold from 2020 to 2021 and we applied the learnings from the first year the campaign was launched, like providing a link that looked trustworthy to donors and not just an app-generated URL. The script and project development from PROMPT.io’s side was smooth and efficient, and we also received comprehensive and timely post-campaign reports. We look forward to doing the Giving Tuesday SMS campaign again this year.
Raúl Ríos-Sosa
Manager, One-Time Giving
The Results
In 2020, ASC collected $3,000 in donations via text message on Giving Tuesday; in 2021, this increased 300% to reach $9,000. ASC’s use of texting on Giving Tuesday is especially significant as the expense for these results was $4,000 in 2020 and $4,800 in 2021, marking a two-fold return on investment through just two rounds of texting. ASC’s willingness to experiment with new communication channels for fundraising, as well as their tenacity to try texting for a second time despite not immediately seeing overwhelmingly positive results in their first foray into texting, meant they were able to see a substantial growth and return on investment. This was likely attributed at least partially to their donors becoming more familiar with text messaging as a channel. Consequently, the return on the last round of texting exceeded the cost from the previous two years and established text as a viable channel for ASC’s future fundraising efforts.
Response rates were also fairly significant, ranging from 3-8% in 2021. Over the course of the 2020 and 2021 Giving Tuesday campaigns, ASC also learned the importance of messages coming from a trusted person (someone donors had already heard from) within the organization and the links included in their messaging being short and credible.
Text messaging is a promising new mobile channel that integrates well with traditional fundraising strategies. The conversational style and functionality of the PROMPT.io texting platform makes it easy for individuals to make donations, while giving clients more information about their supporters. Tags can be added to contacts who donated or expressed interest; this allows clients to target a segment of their contact list that is likely more amenable to rapid donation appeals in the future.
Connect with us
Register to hear from our team.