Mobile Donors Respond to Traditional-Style Appeals on the Radio

Avoid Distractions

When Fisher House Foundation began making text-message appeals three years ago, it thought it had a winning approach to getting small, spontaneous gifts.

The charity, which helps military service members, asked professional and college sports teams to show public-service announcements on their scoreboards during games to prompt spectators to text donations.

The idea of reaching tens of thousands of captive sports fans with a simple appeal seemed fail-proof. But the messages didn’t register with people more interested in cheering on their favorite team.

The group raised less than $1,000.

Veterans Day Fundraising

Rather than giving up on the idea, the organization decided to try a different approach.

Fisher House persuaded Clear Channel Communications, a company that owns more than 1,200 radio stations, to broadcast live and recorded audio messages from military veterans speaking about the help they had received from the charity. Following the messages, talk-show hosts and disc jockeys would encourage their listeners to text donations to the organization.

At first, Derek Donovan, the organization’s vice president, says he wasn’t optimistic that the effort would work any better than the sports-arena appeals.

But he was quickly proved wrong.

Its first radio solicitations—timed to coincide with Veterans Day 2010—prompted nearly 9,000 people to contribute more than $86,000, or nearly one third of all of the money the charity raised during a campaign that also included telephone and online fundraising.

Since then, more than 800 Clear Channel stations have helped raise more than $400,000 through text appeals. One station in Richmond, Va., raises more than $100,000 annually for the group.

A Phone Nearby

The radio appeals succeeded, Mr. Donovan says, because “the audiences on radio are more likely to have a phone handy and be able to make that donation while they’re listening—at home, at work, wherever they may be.” (Fisher House has asked the radio stations to urge listeners not to text donations while they’re driving.)

Mr. Donovan says another lesson is that the personal touch matters: The radio hosts know how to reach out to listeners and gain their trust, he says. “We’re glad our message resonates with people on the radio,” he says. “We’re just grateful that the station managers and the radio hosts like what we do; they’re the ones that really make it happen.”