Animal Charity Ponders Ways to Make the Most of Text Messages in Seeking Gifts

As the recession continues, charities are stepping up their efforts to test solicitations and figure out which ones work best before spending money and time on ineffective ones.

Geoff Handy, vice president of media and online communications at the Humane Society of the United States, in Washington, which raised $8.3-million online last year, says his organization learned that text messages sometimes have unintended but welcome effects.

On December 30, the charity sent text messages to 7,628 people who had signed up to get news updates from the organization, to remind them to make a tax-deductible gift before year’s end. It encouraged people to phone the charity’s call center and make a donation.

Nobody called the center, so the charity figured the appeal had failed. But then the charity sent an e-mail appeal the following day — and found that people who had received the text message were far more likely to give in response to the e-mail than those who received only the e-mail message. In fact, the combination of text and e-mail produced gifts from 77 percent more people than the e-mail-only approach.

Rethinking an Approach

Those results prompted the organization to think more about how to use text messages to seek donations. The charity persuaded a billboard-advertising company to give it a big discount on two 15-second text-message appeals in New York’s Times Square.

One version asks passers-by to send a text message making a $5 donation that is automatically added to their phone bill. The other urges them to send a text message with their e-mail address to the Humane Society, which will follow up with an e-mail appeal for $25 or more.

Mr. Handy plans to keep an eye on the ads, which began to appear a few weeks ago, to see which tactic yields better results. But more important, he says, is to figure out “how many will follow up on making their pledge.”