Human Rights Campaign

The Human Rights Campaign Finds that Mobile Subscribers are 250% More Likely to Donate

Fundraising is an integral part of every non-profit’s efforts to sustain their organization. In order to optimize fundraising results, it’s essential that non-profits communicate with their supporters. However, it’s tough for an organization to break out from the crowd and ensure that their message is heard when there are so many demands on the attention of supporters. Emails go unopened and phone calls go unanswered. Text messaging offers a significant advantage over other channels in reaching supporters – 99% of all text messages are read and the average text is opened within 90 seconds.

The Best Non-Profits Care About Text Messaging

Regardless of if or how a supporter makes a donation, every conversation with a supporter helps to move him or her further along the path to donating. With Upland Mobile Messaging’s technology, organizations can communicate with their best supporters on the device they use most – their mobile phones. Since supporters will actually read the messages, usually immediately after they are received, having a text message campaign leads to more engaged and more active supporters.

The Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group fighting for LGBT rights, worked to build its mobile list and saw substantial success in promoting its brand across a wide supporter base over two years. Although contributions made over mobile web forms weren’t driving a significant amount of donations, the HRC wanted to find out whether being on the mobile list had any impact on actual donations.

An analysis of the HRC’s fundraising data over the past two years revealed some amazing insights. Supporters who are mobile subscribers are 250% more likely to donate, compared to supporters who are email-only subscribers. It is important to note that nearly everyone on the mobile list was also on the email list – so effectively, mobile subscribers are email plus mobile, and receive messages from the HRC over both channels.

Results: Mobile Subscribers are More Likely to Donate

To determine the value of their mobile list, the HRC analyzed their fundraising data to compare mobile subscribers to email-only subscribers. If mobile subscribers were better donors as a result of the HRC’s text messaging campaigns, the data would show by just how much.

First, the HRC calculated the relative contribution of donations made by mobile subscribers. By comparing the percentage of all donations made by mobile subscribers with the size of their mobile list, the HRC found that in 2013, donations from mobile subscribers accounted for 22.1% of all donations, although mobile subscribers made up only 8% of their list. Similarly, in 2014, 21% of donations came from mobile subscribers, even though only 9% of their list consisted of mobile subscribers. These results show that mobile subscribers are 250% more likely to donate than an email-only subscriber.

Next, HRC compared the value of a mobile subscriber to the value of an email-only subscriber. By dividing the total value of donations by the number of subscribers on each list, the HRC found that mobile subscribers are indeed more valuable than email-only subscribers. In January 2013, the value of an email plus mobile subscriber was 309% higher than an email-only subscriber. In January 2014, the value of an email plus mobile subscriber was 236% higher than the value of an email-only subscriber. These results only further prove the importance of using mobile communications to reach and engage supporters.

Why Mobile Subscribers Make Better Donors

Multi-channel donor engagement is crucial for any organization’s fundraising efforts, and text messaging is the channel that not only creates more engaged supporters who will read your messages, but also leads to better fundraising results. By analyzing their data, HRC proved that email plus mobile subscribers are more likely to donate than email-only subscribers and that the value of a supporter is higher if they are on the mobile list. These insights show the direct impact that mobile communications have on an organization’s fundraising campaigns.