June 18, 2025 • 24 mins
Would you believe it if I told you that texting is now one of Boys Town’s TOP revenue generating channels? Text messaging isn’t just for appointment reminders. It’s becoming one of the fastest and most effective ways nonprofits can deepen donor relationships.
In this episode, I’m talking to Jasonea Shockey, Director of Digital Marketing at Boys Town, to share how her team launched their successful SMS strategy from scratch. With no new hires, they repurposed email content, added emojis, and saw sky-high engagement - think 98–99% open rates!
Jasonea walks us through how they leveraged their existing donor list, balanced MMS vs. SMS campaigns, crafted welcome flows, and learned from benchmarks around timing and frequency to improve performance. Even with an aging donor base (average age: early 80s), they found surprisingly strong engagement through mobile.
Whether you’re working with a small team or wondering how to stay visible as email privacy rules evolve, this episode offers a clear case for why SMS belongs in your nonprofit's toolkit.
P.S. Text DANA to 770-230-8422 to join my texting program.
Resources & Links
Connect with Jasonea on LinkedIn and learn more about Boys Town on their website.
Check out Tatango, the#1 SMS software for nonprofit fundraising.
Text the word JOIN to 51550 to join the Boys Town texting program. You can also text DANA to 770-230-8422 to see my own experiment with this.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
If you've been wondering whether your nonprofit
should dip its toes into textmessaging, this episode is your
sign.
I am joined by Jasonea Shockey,the Director of Digital
Marketing at Boys Town, anincredible organization that has
been changing the lives ofchildren and families for over
100 years through care,education and support services.
Jasonea has been leading thecharge in bringing SMS into the
(00:24):
spotlight at Boys Town in 2023.
And she really walks us throughhow they launched their text
messaging program from theground up, From talking about
the initial internal approvalsof getting it done to
integrating SMS alongside theiremail, their social program.
We get into what types ofmessaging actually works, what
(00:46):
frequency they've done, howthey're using mobile to really
deepen donor relationships.
And she shares some really bigwins on SMS, MMS, the lessons
that they've learned and reallywhy SMS is not just a trend but
a really smart, human-centeredway to stay connected with your
supporters.
So if you've been askingyourself, is it really worth it
(01:09):
for our organization, thisepisode is packed with some
really ready-to-try ideas, solet's get into it.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
That's the other cool thing about texting is it has
given our donors just adifferent way to connect with us
and for us to connect with them, like, it's so easy to send a
text message and I think that itmakes donors feel good when,
like, we take the time torespond to them and we want to
respond to them right, becausewe appreciate that they're
reaching out to us.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Okay.
So I want to jump right intowhat really sparked the decision
to launch text messaging SMS atBoys Town, and I can imagine
some listeners might be thinkingabout.
There's a lot of people that wemight need to convince at our
organization for this to bepossible.
Was it like that internally?
(01:59):
Did you have to get by and keeptalking about like as the
decision was being made?
What was the mindset like inthe organization?
What was the reason for like?
Okay, we need to start to dothis now.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
So I would say I started thinking about texting
back in 2023.
I went to the Bridge Conference, which I love, lots of other
nonprofit professionals and wentto a couple of presentations
where they were spotlightingtheir texting programs and they
were seeing a lot of successfrom a fundraising standpoint
(02:31):
and then also from a donorengagement standpoint.
At the time I was managing ouremail marketing, which I still
am, but email marketing wasreally successful for us.
It continues to be a goodplatform.
But they were going through alot of privacy changes, as we
all know.
It's harder and harder to getinto the inbox, and so we wanted
(02:52):
to kind of expand our channelsand different ways to meet
donors, really where they wereat.
I'm really fortunate becauseBoys Town, I feel like, is great
at adopting new technologies.
I feel like, is great atadopting new technologies and
especially if we can come withcase studies of other nonprofits
who are already doing it havingsuccess with it, that really
(03:13):
helped my business case and so Iwent to Bridge, came back, kind
of started talking about it.
Then I went to anotherconference shortly after that
and I talked one-on-one withsome more nonprofit
professionals, primarily withMarch of Dimes.
They had a great case study andso after that I came back and
it was a pretty easy sell, itwas pretty affordable and so
(03:37):
this was leading into givingseason in 2023.
I really wanted to launchbefore Giving Tuesday because I
wanted to kind of hit the groundrunning.
We could not hit Giving Tuesday, but we did hit December, which
was awesome, and it's just beenawesome ever since.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Amazing.
Okay, so you talk about theintegration of text messaging.
You're also working on email.
What's the difference?
Do you see in a simple style,like an open rate, like an open
rate of your text versus an openrate of your emails?
Is that like a big difference?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yeah, so open rate on text ours ranges from like 45
to 65%, which you know we kindof look at open rates loosely
now because it's not quite asreliable as a source.
Our open rates on our texts arelike 98 to 99%, yeah, and so
huge difference.
Like we know, everybody's ontheir phones and we just have
(04:29):
had a really engaged audiencethrough our text message program
.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Love that For organizations that might be
small teams, medium-sized teamsto create a text messaging plan,
do you think you need like asolo person working on it or
somebody who's also managingother things can also work on
building out like a beginner'sstage of a text messaging plan.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
I think you can absolutely do it with your
current team.
We did not add any team members.
We repurpose a lot of our emailcontent with our text program,
so it makes it super efficient.
We add extra emojis.
People seem to like emojis ontext.
Her tone is a little bit morefriendly, so it's different, but
it's pretty seamless from emailto text.
(05:10):
So I absolutely think anybodysmall big organizations can work
this into their program.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Okay, and I don't want to bury the lead.
I want to give you theopportunity because this is I
love seeing things working inaction.
So, when you did your launch,which I want to talk all about,
how can somebody right now joinyour texting to be able to see
what it looks like to receive atext from a nonprofit if they
don't already do that?
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Thank you for allowing me to share this with
your audience.
So, yes, if they want to joinVoiceHound's text program, they
can text the word join to 51550.
That is also on our homepage ofour website.
So if they forget, they can goto boyshuntorg and sign up that
way and they'll get an immediatewelcome text from us and then
they can kind of secret shop,right, like that's.
(05:54):
The most awesome thing aboutnonprofits is, I feel like you
can learn so much from whatother organizations are doing.
You don't have to start fromscratch, which is great.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yes, I am also testing this out.
We were talking before.
I also created a Tatangoaccount, so, selfish Play.
You can text Dana Mine's aphone number, which is different
of a code versus number770-230-8422.
I'll put both of ours in theshow notes, and so I had fun
like playing with my littlewelcome message, and I'm just
getting started.
What was the launch period likein 2023?
Speaker 2 (06:31):
There was a healthy level of anxiety.
I would say, keeping it real,yes, yes, especially during the
giving season.
Right, like I did not want tomess anything up in the giving
season.
It's such a crucial time fornonprofits.
The cool thing about nonprofitsis you do have a little bit of
wiggle room with your newaudience for your texting
(06:53):
program.
So anybody who has donatedonline and provided a phone
number you can opt into youremail program, and so we took a
list of people who had donatedonline in the past two years
with a phone number and we addedthem.
Tatango is a little bit of ashameless plug for Tatango, but
they are a fantastic vendor.
We did shop around quite a bitbefore we decided on them.
(07:15):
They came highly recommended inthe industry and their customer
support is amazing, so thathelped a ton with our onboarding
.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
I can speak to that.
I had questions when I wasfirst getting started.
Immediately the messaging likeinstantaneous from a real person
.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
We onboarded in December and, I would say again,
it was pretty easy.
They helped us figure out.
We launched initially with MMS,which, for those people that
don't know the difference, anMMS has a picture and a message
and then SMS is text only.
And so we launched with MMS inDecember.
Our audience, our average age,is like early to mid eighties,
(07:55):
and so I was really nervous thatwe were going to have a hard
time building confidence withthe audience and that they would
trust that this was a, you know, a viable channel for them to
engage with us.
I was nervous, but I waspleasantly surprised.
Our donors have been awesome.
They've engaged with us on text, they've responded with our
(08:15):
appeals and it's just been.
It's been really great.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Amazing.
Okay, so you uploaded a list,which, again, I think that's a
really big point.
Everybody asks about legalitiesaround that and you are correct
.
Nonprofits I sat through awebinar with them talking about
how nonprofits you have a littlebit of this leg up of
for-profit companies where, ifthey have given you a phone
number based upon what you justoutlined, and of course, in
(08:38):
every single message there isthe stop to opt out that they
have as an option For new people.
Since that initial launch yousaid it's on your website have
you ran a prominent campaign toask people that you didn't
already have their phone numbersto join?
Speaker 2 (08:51):
since so we have not.
That is kind of our next phaseand, I think, an area, a work in
progress for us.
Most of our list acquisition todate comes from new online
donors.
They automatically get optedinto our text program and then,
like you said, have theopportunity to opt out if that's
not how they want to hear fromus.
We have done a couple of likesmaller SOP campaigns where
(09:14):
we've tried to promote ourkeyword but we have not seen a
ton of adoption yet.
So that's definitely an areathat we are we need to improve
on.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Okay.
Have you seen a difference indonor retention since adding
text messaging?
Ooh.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
I don't know that I can speak to that in certainty
that our text program, you know,helped our retention rate.
I would say that we've hadawesome response and conversion
rate from texting much more fromemail.
It was number seven on ourchannel list of revenue for 2024
, and it had the highestconversion rate in 2020.
(09:56):
Wow, Amazing.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Yeah, so it's been really successful.
My logic and like thought toasking that question is around.
I know I miss so many emails onthe daily just because you're
inundated, or they go to a spamfolder or promotions or
something, or I have like anewsletter filter that a lot of
times they go into and if I missthat I might be thinking, oh,
they're not communicating withme, Although you are, I'm just
(10:20):
not seeing it.
But my phone, to your point, Iopen every message because you
want to clear them out, becauseyou literally see the little
number of how many text messagesyou have.
So you're going to open it andwhether or not I click through
to maybe a blog that you'resharing or something, I'm at
least seeing it and thereforeyour organization is then again
top of mind and I know you'recommunicating with me.
(10:42):
So that's where my kind ofthought is.
Is around this like omni-channelapproach It'd be interesting to
look at like pre and then withthose specific donors, I guess
from an overall retentionperspective.
But for the texting, becausemost of them are donors, then is
that accurate?
That's accurate, Okay.
What's the strategy of likefrequency that you're reaching
(11:04):
out to them and what are thetypes of like messages that
you're sending on each occasion.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Last year we sent about 30 messages outside of our
automated welcome messages.
About 50% of those were appeals, which is, I think, right on
trend with the benchmarks thatTatango provided in their report
.
About 50% are appeals for mostnonprofits and then the other
half were mainly likecultivation and stewardship.
(11:34):
So we have some engagementemails, probably like a 25%,
where we have like an e-cardcampaign where we're asking them
to, you know, send a card tokids in our program e-card
campaign, where we're askingthem to, you know, send a card
to kids in our program surveyopportunities, basically ways
for them to engage with uswithout making a donation.
And then for the stewardship,it's like success stories and
(11:59):
gratitude, reporting back oncampaigns that we've sent to
them and making sure that theyknow, you know, that we're
appreciative of them and thevalue that they're bringing to
the organization with theirsupport.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Awesome.
Is there a learning, I guess,for your audience if it's like.
I think the general sense issend in the evenings between 8
to 9 pm and a weekday versus aweekend, and what's cool in the
platform is you can listeners,you can select like their time
zone so they'll go out in astaggered approach.
Have you seen any like lessonlike that?
(12:27):
That's worked specifically well.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Yeah, so when we first launched we did play quite
a bit with the time and thenTatango came out with a report
that recommended the eveningsend and since then most of our
sends are in the evening and wehave seen improved engagement
since doing that, which isanother great thing about
Tatango.
Right, we try to when we workwith partners and they take the
time to do all that research andthen share it like Read it,
(12:53):
benefit from it, like kind ofsee what the trend is and what's
working and then work it intoyour program.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
So yes, I love that.
I know it's cool because youcan see, like, the responses
from people.
Do you have Tatango integratedinto a CRM where you can see,
like that donor relationship?
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yes, so when we first launched Tatango we kept it
completely within our department, mainly because it was Q4 and
we didn't want to add that ontoour donor services team at the
time.
But it was kind of a blessing indisguise, because then our team
got to see all of thoseresponses from donors and see
the kinds of questions theyasked and the feedback they
provided.
(13:29):
So initially probably for thefirst nine to 12 months, we did
not have a direct integrationwith our CRM and we were doing
some manual importing andexporting.
We have since integrated and soall the comments that we get
the one-to-one communicationdoes go into our CRM and then
our donor services can respondto them directly.
(13:50):
And that's the other cool thingabout texting is it is given
our donors just a different wayto connect with us and for us to
connect with them, like, it'sso easy to send a text message
and I think that it makes donorsfeel good when, like, we take
the time to respond to them andwe want to respond to them right
, because we appreciate thatthey're reaching out to us, and
(14:12):
so that's been cool too.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Yes, I love that.
I want to talk maybe about acouple of examples of an appeal
text versus like engagementstewardship text.
Can you share?
Like an example of both andlike how the messaging is
different?
Have you consistently beendoing MMS more so than SMS?
(14:33):
Like just an example of whatthey can look like and feel like
?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
can look like and feel like.
So in our first year I wouldsay we did primarily MMS, which
is the more expensive way tosend a text message, but it also
gives you more characters andyou can include a photo, photo,
videos emojis yeah, gifs, canyou do GIFs?
Speaker 1 (14:53):
You can do GIFs?
Okay, yeah, so it makes itreally much more animated.
Yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
You're correct.
The only thing I don't loveabout the videos is you can't
track views.
So oftentimes if we do video wewill link to our website so
then we can see clicks.
But yes, it is a great optionand we do have a video in our
welcome message so they can seethat right away.
So our appeals last year wereprimarily MMS and then we would
(15:18):
use SMS for the kind of final,urgent, last-minute campaign
ending.
I was surprised at least we seeawesome response with our SMS,
and so this year we're testingcan we send less?
Speaker 1 (15:34):
MMS.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Yes, Just for cost savings.
If we can send an SMS and getthe same results, that's great
for the organization.
So we're doing some testingaround that.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
I think that's really interesting, because it's
probably just thinking about thedemographic you were talking
about, and this is different forevery organization.
But how do they use text?
Are they putting a bunch ofGIFs in videos and photos when
they send messages, or is itjust text-based, and it probably
feels more natural to receivesomething that looks like
something that they're sendingall the time.
Something I also really like isthat you can create I'm not
(16:09):
sure if you did this, yet I justcreated mine like a contact
card.
Okay, will you explain how thisworks, because I thought it was
so cool.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yes, so we this was obviously recommendation up
toango.
Our first message, our welcomemessage, talks about the contact
card and so essentially itallows the donor or, I guess,
text subscriber, to update theircontact.
So then in the future, whenthey get email or text from us,
it shows from Boys Town and ithas our logo versus our number.
So, yeah, so that's a greattool that I think helps with
(16:39):
future open rates and clickthrough rates.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Yes, as it actually shows like so far in mind.
It'll say like Dana Snyder,like sent you a text and open it
up, instead of like a randomphone number which can feel
spammy.
I think it's so cool If there'sorganizations listening that
are on the fence about gettingstarted, and I do want to
mention that we put together areally great introductory plan
(17:01):
with Tatango to getorganizations started and I will
link to that below.
You can just start at $1.99 amonth for a few thousand
messages just to get started,get your feet wet and see how
you like the process.
What would be a recommendationif they're on the fence, if it's
like we've thought about it,but X, y and Z right Excuse.
What would be your advice tothem?
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Well, first of all, I love that Tatango is doing a
welcome offer.
That's awesomely generous.
I would say you should just tryit.
It's hard to make an excuse notto do it because you know, with
the opportunity to takeexisting donors and enroll them,
you've got a built-in listalready.
That's right.
If you're already sending emailmessages like, it's so easy to
(17:45):
just kind of lift and shift,take that content, move it over
to your text program.
I cannot say enough good thingsabout the program and what it
has done for us, both from, likeI said, a fundraising
standpoint and then also justdonor engagement.
We just don't know what privacyis going to happen.
(18:07):
I'm sure that mobile privacy isgoing to get tighter and
tighter, and so that was anotherone of our motivators is I'm
like I feel like we need to geton this channel now, while it's
hot, while people are engaging,before we can't.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Right, right, and I think it's also such an untapped
space, like I get many thingsfrom e-commerce companies about
sales and discounts andpromotions, but very few and far
between of organizations doingthis, and I think what makes
what I love about this, likeintro plan, is it makes it
possible for any sizeorganization you don't have to
be an enterprise, international,national organization for this
(18:41):
to work.
This year, so 2025, now you'vehad a couple years, a year and a
half, under your belt.
What are kind of priorities?
What are things that you'retesting?
I know you mentioned SMSmessages more.
Are there any other things thatyou're testing this year when
it comes to texting?
Speaker 2 (18:56):
I would say we are testing if we can send more
messages and see if we can stillmaintain the health of our list
and not lose subscribers.
We are also testing to see ifwe can get more email
subscribers to become textsubscribers.
We pulled a report a couplemonths ago and we had less than
(19:17):
2% overlap on our list and ourtext list is significantly
smaller than our email list,which makes sense because it's a
newer program.
But if we can get, I think, ouremail subscribers to become
text subscribers, that would bea huge win for us.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Absolutely.
I mean when you're looking at a98, 99% open on a text and the
engagement with that versus anemail, I mean when you're
looking at a 98, 99% open on atext and the engagement with
that versus an email, I meanthat's huge.
Can you please share again yourcode and how people can see
like the welcome experience andthen from the welcome experience
, is that like a sequence thatyou've set up or is it just one
text?
(19:55):
So first, of all.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Thank you again for mentioning it.
They can text JOIN to 51550.
And our welcome text is asingle text right now, but that
is I guess that's another.
One of our 2025 initiatives isto expand that and see if we can
kind of add a little bit moreto that experience so that we
can better engage the donorright off the bat.
(20:17):
So cool, I love that.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Thank you so much for coming on the show where, if
you have questions, if they arecurious, want to pick your brain
.
What's the best place for themto reach you?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
I would say the best place is on LinkedIn.
They can send me a directmessage and I'm happy to answer
additional questions or sharefeedback.
I hope that people try it out.
It is worth it.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Yes, thank you so much for being here.
Thank you so much for what youdo.
I will link all the good thingsdown in the show notes right in
this episode so everyone cantake advantage of it and start
your text messaging program.
I want to sign up and see whateverybody does, so thank you so
much again for being here.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode of
Missions to Movements.
If you enjoyed our conversationand found it helpful, I would
love for you to take a moment toleave a review.
Wherever you're listening, yourfeedback helps us reach more
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(21:15):
Don't forget to hit thatsubscribe button too, so you'll
never miss an episode, and untilnext time, keep turning your
mission into a movement.
If you've been wondering whether your nonprofit
should dip its toes into textmessaging, this episode is your
sign.
I am joined by Jasonea Shockey,the Director of Digital
Marketing at Boys Town, anincredible organization that has
been changing the lives ofchildren and families for over
100 years through care,education and support services.
Jasonea has been leading thecharge in bringing SMS into the
(00:24):
spotlight at Boys Town in 2023.
And she really walks us throughhow they launched their text
messaging program from theground up, From talking about
the initial internal approvalsof getting it done to
integrating SMS alongside theiremail, their social program.
We get into what types ofmessaging actually works, what
(00:46):
frequency they've done, howthey're using mobile to really
deepen donor relationships.
And she shares some really bigwins on SMS, MMS, the lessons
that they've learned and reallywhy SMS is not just a trend but
a really smart, human-centeredway to stay connected with your
supporters.
So if you've been askingyourself, is it really worth it
(01:09):
for our organization, thisepisode is packed with some
really ready-to-try ideas, solet's get into it.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
That's the other cool thing about texting is it has
given our donors just adifferent way to connect with us
and for us to connect with them, like, it's so easy to send a
text message and I think that itmakes donors feel good when,
like, we take the time torespond to them and we want to
respond to them right, becausewe appreciate that they're
reaching out to us.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Okay.
So I want to jump right intowhat really sparked the decision
to launch text messaging SMS atBoys Town, and I can imagine
some listeners might be thinkingabout.
There's a lot of people that wemight need to convince at our
organization for this to bepossible.
Was it like that internally?
(01:59):
Did you have to get by and keeptalking about like as the
decision was being made?
What was the mindset like inthe organization?
What was the reason for like?
Okay, we need to start to dothis now.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
So I would say I started thinking about texting
back in 2023.
I went to the Bridge Conference, which I love, lots of other
nonprofit professionals and wentto a couple of presentations
where they were spotlightingtheir texting programs and they
were seeing a lot of successfrom a fundraising standpoint
(02:31):
and then also from a donorengagement standpoint.
At the time I was managing ouremail marketing, which I still
am, but email marketing wasreally successful for us.
It continues to be a goodplatform.
But they were going through alot of privacy changes, as we
all know.
It's harder and harder to getinto the inbox, and so we wanted
(02:52):
to kind of expand our channelsand different ways to meet
donors, really where they wereat.
I'm really fortunate becauseBoys Town, I feel like, is great
at adopting new technologies.
I feel like, is great atadopting new technologies and
especially if we can come withcase studies of other nonprofits
who are already doing it havingsuccess with it, that really
(03:13):
helped my business case and so Iwent to Bridge, came back, kind
of started talking about it.
Then I went to anotherconference shortly after that
and I talked one-on-one withsome more nonprofit
professionals, primarily withMarch of Dimes.
They had a great case study andso after that I came back and
it was a pretty easy sell, itwas pretty affordable and so
(03:37):
this was leading into givingseason in 2023.
I really wanted to launchbefore Giving Tuesday because I
wanted to kind of hit the groundrunning.
We could not hit Giving Tuesday, but we did hit December, which
was awesome, and it's just beenawesome ever since.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Amazing.
Okay, so you talk about theintegration of text messaging.
You're also working on email.
What's the difference?
Do you see in a simple style,like an open rate, like an open
rate of your text versus an openrate of your emails?
Is that like a big difference?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yeah, so open rate on text ours ranges from like 45
to 65%, which you know we kindof look at open rates loosely
now because it's not quite asreliable as a source.
Our open rates on our texts arelike 98 to 99%, yeah, and so
huge difference.
Like we know, everybody's ontheir phones and we just have
(04:29):
had a really engaged audiencethrough our text message program
.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Love that For organizations that might be
small teams, medium-sized teamsto create a text messaging plan,
do you think you need like asolo person working on it or
somebody who's also managingother things can also work on
building out like a beginner'sstage of a text messaging plan.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
I think you can absolutely do it with your
current team.
We did not add any team members.
We repurpose a lot of our emailcontent with our text program,
so it makes it super efficient.
We add extra emojis.
People seem to like emojis ontext.
Her tone is a little bit morefriendly, so it's different, but
it's pretty seamless from emailto text.
(05:10):
So I absolutely think anybodysmall big organizations can work
this into their program.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Okay, and I don't want to bury the lead.
I want to give you theopportunity because this is I
love seeing things working inaction.
So, when you did your launch,which I want to talk all about,
how can somebody right now joinyour texting to be able to see
what it looks like to receive atext from a nonprofit if they
don't already do that?
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Thank you for allowing me to share this with
your audience.
So, yes, if they want to joinVoiceHound's text program, they
can text the word join to 51550.
That is also on our homepage ofour website.
So if they forget, they can goto boyshuntorg and sign up that
way and they'll get an immediatewelcome text from us and then
they can kind of secret shop,right, like that's.
(05:54):
The most awesome thing aboutnonprofits is, I feel like you
can learn so much from whatother organizations are doing.
You don't have to start fromscratch, which is great.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yes, I am also testing this out.
We were talking before.
I also created a Tatangoaccount, so, selfish Play.
You can text Dana Mine's aphone number, which is different
of a code versus number770-230-8422.
I'll put both of ours in theshow notes, and so I had fun
like playing with my littlewelcome message, and I'm just
getting started.
What was the launch period likein 2023?
Speaker 2 (06:31):
There was a healthy level of anxiety.
I would say, keeping it real,yes, yes, especially during the
giving season.
Right, like I did not want tomess anything up in the giving
season.
It's such a crucial time fornonprofits.
The cool thing about nonprofitsis you do have a little bit of
wiggle room with your newaudience for your texting
(06:53):
program.
So anybody who has donatedonline and provided a phone
number you can opt into youremail program, and so we took a
list of people who had donatedonline in the past two years
with a phone number and we addedthem.
Tatango is a little bit of ashameless plug for Tatango, but
they are a fantastic vendor.
We did shop around quite a bitbefore we decided on them.
(07:15):
They came highly recommended inthe industry and their customer
support is amazing, so thathelped a ton with our onboarding
.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
I can speak to that.
I had questions when I wasfirst getting started.
Immediately the messaging likeinstantaneous from a real person
.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
We onboarded in December and, I would say again,
it was pretty easy.
They helped us figure out.
We launched initially with MMS,which, for those people that
don't know the difference, anMMS has a picture and a message
and then SMS is text only.
And so we launched with MMS inDecember.
Our audience, our average age,is like early to mid eighties,
(07:55):
and so I was really nervous thatwe were going to have a hard
time building confidence withthe audience and that they would
trust that this was a, you know, a viable channel for them to
engage with us.
I was nervous, but I waspleasantly surprised.
Our donors have been awesome.
They've engaged with us on text, they've responded with our
(08:15):
appeals and it's just been.
It's been really great.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Amazing.
Okay, so you uploaded a list,which, again, I think that's a
really big point.
Everybody asks about legalitiesaround that and you are correct
.
Nonprofits I sat through awebinar with them talking about
how nonprofits you have a littlebit of this leg up of
for-profit companies where, ifthey have given you a phone
number based upon what you justoutlined, and of course, in
(08:38):
every single message there isthe stop to opt out that they
have as an option For new people.
Since that initial launch yousaid it's on your website have
you ran a prominent campaign toask people that you didn't
already have their phone numbersto join?
Speaker 2 (08:51):
since so we have not.
That is kind of our next phaseand, I think, an area, a work in
progress for us.
Most of our list acquisition todate comes from new online
donors.
They automatically get optedinto our text program and then,
like you said, have theopportunity to opt out if that's
not how they want to hear fromus.
We have done a couple of likesmaller SOP campaigns where
(09:14):
we've tried to promote ourkeyword but we have not seen a
ton of adoption yet.
So that's definitely an areathat we are we need to improve
on.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Okay.
Have you seen a difference indonor retention since adding
text messaging?
Ooh.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
I don't know that I can speak to that in certainty
that our text program, you know,helped our retention rate.
I would say that we've hadawesome response and conversion
rate from texting much more fromemail.
It was number seven on ourchannel list of revenue for 2024
, and it had the highestconversion rate in 2020.
(09:56):
Wow, Amazing.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Yeah, so it's been really successful.
My logic and like thought toasking that question is around.
I know I miss so many emails onthe daily just because you're
inundated, or they go to a spamfolder or promotions or
something, or I have like anewsletter filter that a lot of
times they go into and if I missthat I might be thinking, oh,
they're not communicating withme, Although you are, I'm just
(10:20):
not seeing it.
But my phone, to your point, Iopen every message because you
want to clear them out, becauseyou literally see the little
number of how many text messagesyou have.
So you're going to open it andwhether or not I click through
to maybe a blog that you'resharing or something, I'm at
least seeing it and thereforeyour organization is then again
top of mind and I know you'recommunicating with me.
(10:42):
So that's where my kind ofthought is.
Is around this like omni-channelapproach It'd be interesting to
look at like pre and then withthose specific donors, I guess
from an overall retentionperspective.
But for the texting, becausemost of them are donors, then is
that accurate?
That's accurate, Okay.
What's the strategy of likefrequency that you're reaching
(11:04):
out to them and what are thetypes of like messages that
you're sending on each occasion.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Last year we sent about 30 messages outside of our
automated welcome messages.
About 50% of those were appeals, which is, I think, right on
trend with the benchmarks thatTatango provided in their report
.
About 50% are appeals for mostnonprofits and then the other
half were mainly likecultivation and stewardship.
(11:34):
So we have some engagementemails, probably like a 25%,
where we have like an e-cardcampaign where we're asking them
to, you know, send a card tokids in our program e-card
campaign, where we're askingthem to, you know, send a card
to kids in our program surveyopportunities, basically ways
for them to engage with uswithout making a donation.
And then for the stewardship,it's like success stories and
(11:59):
gratitude, reporting back oncampaigns that we've sent to
them and making sure that theyknow, you know, that we're
appreciative of them and thevalue that they're bringing to
the organization with theirsupport.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Awesome.
Is there a learning, I guess,for your audience if it's like.
I think the general sense issend in the evenings between 8
to 9 pm and a weekday versus aweekend, and what's cool in the
platform is you can listeners,you can select like their time
zone so they'll go out in astaggered approach.
Have you seen any like lessonlike that?
(12:27):
That's worked specifically well.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Yeah, so when we first launched we did play quite
a bit with the time and thenTatango came out with a report
that recommended the eveningsend and since then most of our
sends are in the evening and wehave seen improved engagement
since doing that, which isanother great thing about
Tatango.
Right, we try to when we workwith partners and they take the
time to do all that research andthen share it like Read it,
(12:53):
benefit from it, like kind ofsee what the trend is and what's
working and then work it intoyour program.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
So yes, I love that.
I know it's cool because youcan see, like, the responses
from people.
Do you have Tatango integratedinto a CRM where you can see,
like that donor relationship?
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yes, so when we first launched Tatango we kept it
completely within our department, mainly because it was Q4 and
we didn't want to add that ontoour donor services team at the
time.
But it was kind of a blessing indisguise, because then our team
got to see all of thoseresponses from donors and see
the kinds of questions theyasked and the feedback they
provided.
(13:29):
So initially probably for thefirst nine to 12 months, we did
not have a direct integrationwith our CRM and we were doing
some manual importing andexporting.
We have since integrated and soall the comments that we get
the one-to-one communicationdoes go into our CRM and then
our donor services can respondto them directly.
(13:50):
And that's the other cool thingabout texting is it is given
our donors just a different wayto connect with us and for us to
connect with them, like, it'sso easy to send a text message
and I think that it makes donorsfeel good when, like, we take
the time to respond to them andwe want to respond to them right
, because we appreciate thatthey're reaching out to us, and
(14:12):
so that's been cool too.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Yes, I love that.
I want to talk maybe about acouple of examples of an appeal
text versus like engagementstewardship text.
Can you share?
Like an example of both andlike how the messaging is
different?
Have you consistently beendoing MMS more so than SMS?
(14:33):
Like just an example of whatthey can look like and feel like
?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
can look like and feel like.
So in our first year I wouldsay we did primarily MMS, which
is the more expensive way tosend a text message, but it also
gives you more characters andyou can include a photo, photo,
videos emojis yeah, gifs, canyou do GIFs?
Speaker 1 (14:53):
You can do GIFs?
Okay, yeah, so it makes itreally much more animated.
Yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
You're correct.
The only thing I don't loveabout the videos is you can't
track views.
So oftentimes if we do video wewill link to our website so
then we can see clicks.
But yes, it is a great optionand we do have a video in our
welcome message so they can seethat right away.
So our appeals last year wereprimarily MMS and then we would
(15:18):
use SMS for the kind of final,urgent, last-minute campaign
ending.
I was surprised at least we seeawesome response with our SMS,
and so this year we're testingcan we send less?
Speaker 1 (15:34):
MMS.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Yes, Just for cost savings.
If we can send an SMS and getthe same results, that's great
for the organization.
So we're doing some testingaround that.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
I think that's really interesting, because it's
probably just thinking about thedemographic you were talking
about, and this is different forevery organization.
But how do they use text?
Are they putting a bunch ofGIFs in videos and photos when
they send messages, or is itjust text-based, and it probably
feels more natural to receivesomething that looks like
something that they're sendingall the time.
Something I also really like isthat you can create I'm not
(16:09):
sure if you did this, yet I justcreated mine like a contact
card.
Okay, will you explain how thisworks, because I thought it was
so cool.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yes, so we this was obviously recommendation up
toango.
Our first message, our welcomemessage, talks about the contact
card and so essentially itallows the donor or, I guess,
text subscriber, to update theircontact.
So then in the future, whenthey get email or text from us,
it shows from Boys Town and ithas our logo versus our number.
So, yeah, so that's a greattool that I think helps with
(16:39):
future open rates and clickthrough rates.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Yes, as it actually shows like so far in mind.
It'll say like Dana Snyder,like sent you a text and open it
up, instead of like a randomphone number which can feel
spammy.
I think it's so cool If there'sorganizations listening that
are on the fence about gettingstarted, and I do want to
mention that we put together areally great introductory plan
(17:01):
with Tatango to getorganizations started and I will
link to that below.
You can just start at $1.99 amonth for a few thousand
messages just to get started,get your feet wet and see how
you like the process.
What would be a recommendationif they're on the fence, if it's
like we've thought about it,but X, y and Z right Excuse.
What would be your advice tothem?
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Well, first of all, I love that Tatango is doing a
welcome offer.
That's awesomely generous.
I would say you should just tryit.
It's hard to make an excuse notto do it because you know, with
the opportunity to takeexisting donors and enroll them,
you've got a built-in listalready.
That's right.
If you're already sending emailmessages like, it's so easy to
(17:45):
just kind of lift and shift,take that content, move it over
to your text program.
I cannot say enough good thingsabout the program and what it
has done for us, both from, likeI said, a fundraising
standpoint and then also justdonor engagement.
We just don't know what privacyis going to happen.
(18:07):
I'm sure that mobile privacy isgoing to get tighter and
tighter, and so that was anotherone of our motivators is I'm
like I feel like we need to geton this channel now, while it's
hot, while people are engaging,before we can't.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Right, right, and I think it's also such an untapped
space, like I get many thingsfrom e-commerce companies about
sales and discounts andpromotions, but very few and far
between of organizations doingthis, and I think what makes
what I love about this, likeintro plan, is it makes it
possible for any sizeorganization you don't have to
be an enterprise, international,national organization for this
(18:41):
to work.
This year, so 2025, now you'vehad a couple years, a year and a
half, under your belt.
What are kind of priorities?
What are things that you'retesting?
I know you mentioned SMSmessages more.
Are there any other things thatyou're testing this year when
it comes to texting?
Speaker 2 (18:56):
I would say we are testing if we can send more
messages and see if we can stillmaintain the health of our list
and not lose subscribers.
We are also testing to see ifwe can get more email
subscribers to become textsubscribers.
We pulled a report a couplemonths ago and we had less than
(19:17):
2% overlap on our list and ourtext list is significantly
smaller than our email list,which makes sense because it's a
newer program.
But if we can get, I think, ouremail subscribers to become
text subscribers, that would bea huge win for us.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Absolutely.
I mean when you're looking at a98, 99% open on a text and the
engagement with that versus anemail, I mean when you're
looking at a 98, 99% open on atext and the engagement with
that versus an email, I meanthat's huge.
Can you please share again yourcode and how people can see
like the welcome experience andthen from the welcome experience
, is that like a sequence thatyou've set up or is it just one
text?
(19:55):
So first, of all.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Thank you again for mentioning it.
They can text JOIN to 51550.
And our welcome text is asingle text right now, but that
is I guess that's another.
One of our 2025 initiatives isto expand that and see if we can
kind of add a little bit moreto that experience so that we
can better engage the donorright off the bat.
(20:17):
So cool, I love that.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Thank you so much for coming on the show where, if
you have questions, if they arecurious, want to pick your brain
.
What's the best place for themto reach you?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
I would say the best place is on LinkedIn.
They can send me a directmessage and I'm happy to answer
additional questions or sharefeedback.
I hope that people try it out.
It is worth it.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Yes, thank you so much for being here.
Thank you so much for what youdo.
I will link all the good thingsdown in the show notes right in
this episode so everyone cantake advantage of it and start
your text messaging program.
I want to sign up and see whateverybody does, so thank you so
much again for being here.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode of
Missions to Movements.
If you enjoyed our conversationand found it helpful, I would
love for you to take a moment toleave a review.
Wherever you're listening, yourfeedback helps us reach more
changemakers like you andcontinue bringing impactful
stories and strategies to theshow.
(21:15):
Don't forget to hit thatsubscribe button too, so you'll
never miss an episode, and untilnext time, keep turning your
mission into a movement.
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