EP 87: The Power of Text Messaging for Nonprofit Fundraising with James Martin, RallyCorp

Positioning review: Content reviewed for positioning compliance. All references to Handbid are experiential -- Jeff describes his own event experiences and how SMS has worked for his Derby fundraiser. No prescriptive statements requiring reframing. Integration discussion between Handbid and RallyCorp is factual and aspirational. No guarantees, legal, or financial advice present -- all content is experiential fundraising technology discussion.

Jeff: Welcome to Elevate Your Event, your favorite podcast for transforming fundraising events. Join us weekly for expert tips and creative ideas to make your next event a standout success. On this episode, we're diving into the power of text messaging with James Martin from RallyCorp. If you're struggling with low email open rates or looking for a better way to engage donors, this is the episode for you. James explains why texting beats email, how nonprofits can use it to boost attendance and donations, and what's next for donor communication.

Jeff: Hey, welcome back to the Elevate Your Event podcast, where we try to talk about all the various ways you can make your next fundraising event better, or even the technology that you might be using around your fundraising events or just fundraising in general. So we have a very special guest today. We have James Martin from RallyCorp. James, welcome to the show.

James: Hey, thanks for having me. Good to be here.

Jeff: Yeah, tell us a little bit about your background and also what RallyCorp does.

James: We launched another company years ago, focused on content management systems, like a WordPress, powering websites for about 9,000 churches in total. In this world, Jeff, as you know, you pick a market to focus on. So our market at the time was churches and universities. We powered a ton of sites and saw a great deal of money raised through really effective marketing, particularly around landing pages and online experiences. Long story longer, sold that business in 2015, did some investing, took some time off, and brought the team back together to solve the next challenge. And that was driving engagement, which turns out text messaging is a great way to do.

Jeff: Oh my God, it's a game changer. I had to do a presentation at an AFP conference a couple years ago, and we were talking about technology trends and the response rates from SMS versus email. I'm sure you can quote those stats better than I can, but I'm the guy presenting it and my eyes were open to it.

James: Yeah, it's amazing. And I'll be honest, at first I went kicking and screaming. We were 18 months as a company before we doubled down on text messaging. To us, it was one of the multiple channels that we were using. But as we looked across geo-fencing, push notifications, anything that required an app permission set or a login or an app to download, it just became problematic for us. So we decided, let's abandon all app development and just focus on the one app everybody has installed by default and figure out how to master human-centered texting.

Jeff: No, that's awesome. So tell us about what types of services nonprofits use you for as it relates to text messaging.

James: So obviously text messaging, SMS, is what most people think of -- just simple text messaging. And we do video text messaging as well, or MMS. We launched an HD video service where we can lay over a button while a video is playing, and that can be delivered through an MMS experience. And then a newer protocol -- not a lot of folks in your audience may be aware of this, but if they have the newer iPhone or they've had Android for a while, they might see something called RCS where it's richer engagement of the text messages, a little bit more animation, read and send receipts, notifications, better analytics.

Jeff: Isn't this Apple? Apple just took this on, right?

James: Yeah, exactly. It's been carrier-wide for a while, and Android's had it for over a year, two years now, and Apple finally caught up to the game. They were not as excited about it because they have their own iMessage network. But yeah, they're playing along now with the other carriers.

Jeff: It's funny. We joke about it in my family because it's like, don't add the one token Android user to the text thread because then everything turns green and it just really sucks, right?

James: It does suck. Yeah, definitely. So now we have the option to send blue, even from a computer across the network. We've also got ringless voicemail or voicemail drops, which is a lot of fun -- being able to drop a voicemail without having to make a phone call.

Jeff: That's awesome. Because like I said, the email response rate, a bulk email response rate of a few percentage points is great. And I want to say SMS read rates were like in the 80s or 90% range. It was crazy.

James: Yeah, reads are 90% for sure. But what we look at is click rates and how many actually click. And if we don't see 15% click-through on a campaign, we'll pay for the campaign so you try it again. So we guarantee 15%.

Jeff: I hope our listeners are hearing that -- 15%. That's seven times at least what you're going to get out of an email campaign.

James: Yeah, definitely. And we'll put our money where our mouth is and we'll pay for it if it doesn't work.

Jeff: On your site, you show the five-digit code. For those that don't know, that's a short code. So recently there's been a lot of talk and regulation around application-to-person text messaging. How does your short code work for your clients, and are most of your clients sending these mass texts out through 10-digit numbers?

James: We do support short code. We have a number of customers that run on short code. It's a very unique case -- you have to be sending tens of millions of messages to make it make sense. But with 10DLC, or local telephone numbers like 858 for San Diego or 214 for Dallas-Fort Worth, a local area code has to also be registered. And then most of our customers also add a toll-free number for toll-free verification. So we support all three types -- 10DLC, toll-free, and short codes.

Jeff: When would it make sense for your customer to use the short code versus just having their own 10-digit number?

James: Mostly it comes down to throughput per second -- how many messages you want to send per second or per minute. The throughput on a registered short code is really sky's the limit. As fast as you want to send messages, we can send messages. So if you're sending two million messages at a time and you want to make sure those get delivered before dinner, you might want to consider a short code. With 10DLC or even toll-free, we do have high-capacity registration options now. We can get pretty close to that same throughput, but it really comes down to how many messages per second and any filtering that might happen through carriers.

Jeff: And that's just so our listeners understand -- you are helping an organization register a 10-digit number, explaining to the carriers exactly what it's going to be used for, so that you're increasing their deliverability percentage and their throughput, right?

James: Yeah, because we can't guarantee 15% click rate if half your messages are blocked by spam or just never sent. The carriers will just flat out not send it. Which is the most common complaint we get from customers that were with a solution that may have been baked into their CRM, as most providers don't go through that trouble. It costs quite a bit of money and time and energy, and we have a full-on compliance person. So unless the vendor has a full-time compliance person working on these things, your messages are probably not getting delivered.

Jeff: I'd be honest with you, because we have some overlapping services. But what you're describing is exactly right. We force all of our clients who are doing what we call invitation -- non-event, marketing-related interactions like "hey, come to my event" -- those have to go through a 10-digit number. The compliance and the forms you have to fill out on behalf of customers, I will tell you, it's not fun. It changes all the time. They made a huge change on the network right before Giving Tuesday -- within a week of Giving Tuesday.

James: Oh, how convenient. We deliver tens of millions of messages. We had to scramble, but that's what we do.

Jeff: That's the point I'm making. I would definitely put that in your hands. It's a great service. We do it around the globe, which makes it even more fun.

James: No doubt. If you've ever had to register your phone numbers or sender IDs in various countries, it can be a nightmare. Most of our clients are in the US and Canada. We have a few in Australia, a handful in European countries, and I think one in China somewhere.

Jeff: So I'm a charity and I want to use a service like yours. A lot of charities have CRMs. How does that work? Am I exporting data out of my CRM and loading it into yours? Are you helping them generate their own lists?

James: Great question. We have a couple of different ways -- we call it import or integration. We have a number of integrations that are native. Of course, you can use Zapier if you're familiar with that. We have a full API, and we'll build an integration for a customer. Short of that, we have a simple CSV import where they can download a template. At the end of the day, it's just a phone number and a first name if you want to personalize a message.

Jeff: That's very cool. We should definitely talk, because I think it'd be great to integrate between Handbid and RallyCorp. The idea of taking people -- because we're able to generate really interesting lists of people based on their past behaviors in auctions. So hey, everybody who bid over a certain amount or donated in these last auctions, give me that list. Click a button and send that right into Rally. What do you think?

James: Yeah, I love it. I think it's something we could do quite easily through either our API or yours. Mirroring the systems together is a great way to do it. Because you really want that visibility into what events are working, and if you're going to be sending text messages, you want to make sure they're relevant.

Jeff: And I'm a big fan of using the best tool for the job. Use the best tool rather than one system that does everything okay.

James: I appreciate that. One of our first integrations we actually funded and did on our own was with a competitor system because they were way better at short code but did terrible on 10DLC. We thought, some campaigns are better on 10DLC and some are better on short code -- why move all your traffic? It really comes down to the right tool for the right job.

Jeff: So you guys are sending out a text message that could include a URL. Any challenges with URLs getting filtered out or unhyperlinked?

James: Yeah, definitely. If you're using a Bitly or a common short link service, then absolutely they're being filtered. We have our own link shortening service and a customer can register their own domain. We have over 10 or 15 short links that are quite fun. In your case, one of our short links is fundraise.com. So fundraise.event/whatever would be a great link for a fundraising event. And then we have link click tracking and QR code generation.

Jeff: And you're tracking back all the clicks to see who's tapping on them because that's coming through you, right?

James: It is. We can pass in a link with your system through our API. But if you use our link, we generate a different link for every mobile number. So we know it was clicked by this mobile number and not by that one. We have device-level analytics that are server-side, quite a bit better than some of the issues with browser cookies and privacy rules.

Jeff: So are people also able to text back to the number? Is there any interactivity?

James: Yeah, all of our texting is two-way. We consider that human-centered. Every text message that leaves our system can be responded to and lands at an inbox. We have a team that can monitor that for some of our customers, but most monitor their own inbox. That can be at the campaign level or global across all campaigns.

Jeff: Yeah, I think that's important just to make sure you're getting all the information. Maybe someone is telling you the link didn't work for them.

James: And most people know they're supposed to reply STOP for unsubscribe. Depending on the nature of the campaign, you don't always have to include that disclaimer. But in our system, since we use AI, we can flag that, hey, this person replied with a negative emoji. That's a stop. Let's tag that as negative and alert the inbox that you're getting negative replies. That's just one of the analytics we look at.

Jeff: I saw that recently in a cold email tool -- AI reads the replies and determines positive response, negative response. It's fascinating.

James: True story -- during Giving Tuesday campaigns, we had a customer send around 50,000 messages. About 10% through the campaign, they were getting replies that the link wasn't working, and the administrator had put in the wrong link. We were able to pause the campaign, fix the link, and then resend. Only 10% of the list got the wrong link. Could you imagine getting through 50,000 text messages before you realize the link was wrong?

Jeff: Oh, Lord have mercy. Test those links, guys.

James: Test those links.

Jeff: Okay, so let's talk about text-to-give. This comes up a lot with us. For you guys, do you have your own donation pages, or are people putting in links back to their CRM?

James: We don't have our own donation pages. We're just a communications company focused on delivery of the message. If you text "give" to our short code -- we have a universal short code that our customers have access to, 24365 -- so text "give" to 24365. The system returns a customizable message with a link. We're tracking that link click down to the mobile number, so we know who texted in and maybe didn't click or didn't complete the donation. But that donation form could be one that exists on their website already or a registration for an event.

Jeff: That's the current modern text-to-give, right? Texting in and getting back a URL, a web page, and from there filling out a form to make the donation.

James: Yeah, with smartphones and digital wallets, the online checkout process has been streamlined with Apple Pay and all the different tools. You can literally order a Tesla from your phone, so making a donation is not rocket science. We simply redirect people to a mobile-friendly page. But the old text-to-give would take it off your phone bill under a Mobile Giving Foundation, and that's an expensive proposition -- they take a huge cut. And you don't own that donor data.

Jeff: Just so our listeners understand, those campaigns are $15,000 to $30,000 or more to run. And a lot of these cell phones don't have premium billing turned on anymore. I think it takes three to six months or more to get your money.

James: It does. We had a campaign run two weeks ago that raised $2.4 million under the text-to-donate strategy. People are quite accustomed to clicking a link and filling out a form. And you can do an automatic trigger text message for what we call shopping cart abandonment. If a person does not complete their donation, why not text them the next day and ask them to?

Jeff: I love that idea. Somebody gets three-quarters through and probably just got a phone call in the middle of their donation and lost their place.

James: Exactly. And what is universally true and has been forever is story. It comes down to good story, and whatever medium tells that story best is what you should be doing for your audience. Video is a great way to do that -- one to two-minute videos on the regular. People are accustomed to that. Most of the content they're consuming on their phone is video. I read a statistic that we scroll 300 feet a day on our phones with our thumbs. Our job is to interrupt the scroll and get them to take action.

Jeff: When charities come to you, what kind of conversation are you having with them? Are they coming from something else?

James: In the early days, we would just take any inquiry. If you had a pulse, I'll try to sell you something. Now we do a much better job of identifying what other channels they're communicating through. If they're doing email and it's not working, we can certainly help. But I don't think we should just go from nothing to text messaging unless there's good reason for it. Most organizations need to do the fundamentals well -- tell a story, communicate consistently -- and then we can slip text messaging beside that as one more channel. Most of our customers nowadays are organizations that have text through their CRM or event management tool and they're just not seeing results. We'll do an analysis, and most of the time it's because they haven't deployed text messaging properly.

Jeff: Where do you think it goes from here? What's next for RallyCorp? What replaces text messaging in the future?

James: I think text messaging is here to stay, but it's going to take on some different forms like RCS -- more animation, more filtering. Maybe having messages from contacts or registered phone numbers hit my inbox and everything else go to a promotion folder. Some of the things we saw in the progression of email will happen with text messaging. As we see more apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger pop up, there'll be more integration with those tools. But at the end of the day, every phone comes with a few apps already installed and configured -- phone calls and text messages are native on every phone out of the box. That's here to stay. Within those services, SMS, MMS, and now RCS will bring richer customer experiences. We can also push a button and pull home addresses, net worth, donor screening from a cell phone.

Jeff: Very creepy but cool.

James: Very creepy but cool. But that data has been there all along. It's now available because we're all registering our phone numbers at the gas pump and everywhere else. We think nonprofits should be using it to identify their ideal donors and who should be coming to events.

Jeff: I trust you. It's like, here's my guest list and some of these people were invited by donors of mine, but I don't know every name. Running it through some AI tools and augmenting that data with propensity-to-buy or wealth-type information can be helpful.

James: And let your donors decide. Let them be in charge of their data. Let them decide how they want to communicate with you -- email, US mail, text messaging, voicemail drops. Three, four, five channels. Let them check a box to see how they want to hear from you. And then just be consistent.

Jeff: We've been asked to integrate with WhatsApp, mostly for clients overseas. It seems to be a much more popular platform outside the US.

James: For sure. What's universally true is that anything requiring you to download and create an account or install an app -- those are going to be barriers. Text messaging in the native phone context is here to stay. Within those services, there'll be new opportunities with RCS for richer experiences. But at the end of the day, sending you a message and knowing you'll receive it because you don't have to install an app -- that's here to stay.

Jeff: Like I said, we've seen amazing response rates out of SMS, especially when trying to promote events. My own Kentucky Derby fundraiser -- we start promoting it in February. Most of the regular people already know it's coming. You start promoting with email, but as soon as we send out that blast text invitation -- tickets are up for 2025 Derby, click here to get signed up, looking forward to seeing you, personalized with their own personal link -- all of a sudden, registrations just start picking up.

James: Day before, day of, post event, during the event -- the more you can move people. Everybody who shows up to that event likely has their phone on them.

Jeff: I hope so if they're using Handbid! But what a great way to interact. It's one thing to say they bought a ticket and they're on the guest list. But that event check-in process, that arrival experience is heavily impacted by what you're doing two days in advance, one day in advance, even the morning of. "Hey, it's an amazing Saturday. Weather's beautiful. Looking forward to seeing you tonight at our gala. Just a reminder, this is where you can park, check-in is at this time, you can register early to skip the line." Anything that gets them prepped in advance is helpful.

James: And bring your umbrella.

Jeff: Exactly. So this has been amazing. Tell everyone how to get a hold of you guys.

James: RallyCorp.com -- that's R-A-L-L-Y-C-O-R-P.com. Text "James" to 24365 if you want my personal contact card, including my cell phone. I always tell people, if I have your number, you should have mine. Or email James@RallyCorp.com. Happy to answer any questions. Anybody that mentions Handbid, we'll be happy to set them up with a couple of free months or a couple hundred dollars on their account.

Jeff: James, any parting thoughts before we wrap up?

James: It's been an interesting year. We're obviously in the new year of 2025, so lots of exciting things ahead for everybody. Just encouraging everyone to keep doing what they're doing. It really comes down to multiple touches and multiple channels. There's not one magic bullet, and text messaging's no different.

Jeff: For sure. Let's make 2025 a year of growth and prosperity. Thanks everybody for joining us. We'll wrap this version of the Elevate Your Event podcast up. Until next time, happy fundraising. If you enjoyed our show, please take a moment to leave us a review. You can find us on Apple, Google, and Spotify. Don't forget to subscribe for more great content. And if you're a fan of video, check us out on YouTube. Until next time, happy fundraising.