How to attract volunteers with SMS

One of the most important factors contributing to the success of charities is their ability to recruit great volunteers to help achieve the goals of the organisation.Here’s a great step-by-step guide for charities to boost the quality and quantity of the volunteers they attract:Gather your mobile databases:The best way to start looking for help is to get in touch with people who have already shown an interest in your organisation. Maybe you have a mobile database obtained through your website, or from events you’ve hosted. Perhaps you have a list of volunteers who have worked with you previously, or the details of people who have donated in the past. Whatever kind of contacts you have, prepare to contact them.Figure out exactly what/who you need: Plan out how many volunteers you need, what their objective is going to be, and what skills they will need in order to fulfill that task successfully.Use a Sender ID as your charity name: The Sender ID shows the recipient who the message is from. This will ensure that they will open the message and recognise who it’s from.Write your SMS copy: You may not be able to send the same message to everyone. For people who have volunteered previously, you may say something like:“Thanks for your recent help, you’ve been great! We’d love your help again, call us today on XXXXXXXXXX for more volunteering opportunities!”For someone who had simply attended a recent fundraising event you may want to say something like:“Thanks for coming to our event, we’d love to get you more involved! Give us a call today on XXXXXXXXXX to learn about exciting volunteer challenges.”Get set up with a Web SMS system: Give us a call for this on 1300 764 946 and we can help. It’ll take just a few minutes, and you can take a free trial to see how easy it is to use!Start sending: Sending SMS from a web platform is simple and intuitive. Our service provides three options for sending SMS. You can use our simple Echo system, with our bulk upload feature to contact thousands of potential volunteers at once. You can integrate with our API or you can send SMS through your email with our Echo for Email feature.Get back to them quickly: On average, it takes 90 seconds to respond to an SMS compared to 90 minutes for an email. So don’t be shocked if you get a quick and high response rate. If they express interest quickly, you need to fill them in on all the details right away and get them committed.Often people apply for volunteering work on a whim of passion for a cause, or just because they want to help contribute more to their community. This means you have to be quick-smart to engage them further with your organisation, before that interest has time to fade.Of course, this is just a general overview of how to attract volunteers with SMS. If you’re really serious about recruiting volunteers, give us a call today on 1300 764 946 and we can offer you even more help!