SMS Fundraising: What the 2026 Numbers Say (and What the Outliers Know)

Is SMS fundraising actually worth it? The 2026 M+R Benchmarks study just gave the most honest answer yet: on average, it's a small slice, and the fastest-growing one. Mobile messaging drove just 0.9% of online revenue in 2025, but mobile revenue grew 48% while online revenue overall grew 15%.

The average tells you where most nonprofits are. The growth, and the outliers, tell you where this is going.

The 2026 SMS fundraising numbers that matter

All from the M+R Benchmarks 2026 study (2025 data):

• Mobile messaging drove 0.9% of online revenue. Small nonprofits averaged 3.1% and Wildlife/Animal Welfare 2.7%.
• Mobile revenue grew 48% in 2025 vs. 15% for online revenue overall. Hunger/Poverty orgs: +93%.
• Nonprofits raised $0.09 by text for every $1 by email. Small nonprofits raised $0.20.
• Mobile lists grew 4%, with 176 mobile subscribers per 1,000 email subscribers.
• Fundraising texts: 3.7% click-through, 4.2% page completion, 0.17% response rate. Advocacy texts: 2.6% response.
• Total mobile volume rose 40%, and the median org sent just 7.3 fundraising texts all year.
• And one org in the study raised more through texting than email.

Why the average undersells the channel

From James Martin, founder and CEO of Rally Corp.

I want to say something about that 3.7% click rate, because it often gets read as a ceiling when it is really just one number.

M+R publish that 3.7% as a single average across 180 participating nonprofits. No breakdown by size, no breakdown by sector, no range at all. Everywhere else in the study where they do break the numbers out, the spread is enormous. Small orgs pulled 3.1% of their online revenue from mobile against 0.9% overall. On click rate they simply do not split it, so one flat number is all you get.

Here is what no benchmark study measures, including this one: how those lists were built. In our experience, that matters more than almost anything else you can change. A list of people who chose to hear from you behaves differently than a list that was bought or rented from somewhere else. That is not a knock on anyone. It is just what permission does to attention.

It is why we stay narrow. Rally works with nonprofit causes on permission-based lists, and we do not mix cause messages in with political ones. People first is our first core value, and this is the practical version of it.

That focus is what lets us set a number. We have looked at more than a million campaign sends on our own system, and we hold a 15% click-through floor.

Some campaigns land under it. Many land well above it. It is the target we set for a mature program that follows our guidance and training, and we put it in writing. If you are not hitting it, that is a conversation we would like to have, because it usually means there is something we can adjust together. Results is one of our core values, and we would rather work on it with you than not know about it. And when we offer our customers cold cash to tell us if they fall below it, they often do. WIN-WIN!

At our message rate, that works out to about 33 cents to put a supporter on your website, and less at volume. Getting those same 150 visits by email, at the 0.59% click rate M+R report for nonprofit fundraising email, would take about 25,000 sends.

The other half of it is what we coach a three to one (3:1) ratio. Three messages that carry impact, a story, or an update, for every one message that asks for money.

Do not make every text a solicitation. Donors are humans, not wallets. The supporters who hear from you in between the asks are the ones who click when it counts.

Many of our YMCA partners handle this in a very practical way. They run multiple join keywords rather than pushing every message through one massive list, so each campaign builds its own opt-in interest list for the programs their members actually want to hear about.

Segmentation is easier to keep up when the structure does some of the work for you.

And there is no magic bullet here.

No one size fits all.

Most of this comes down to optimizing for the phone, because that is where your supporters already are. They read your email there. They watch your video there. They scroll there. They answer you there in the middle of a campaign. So the message has to work on a phone, the landing page has to load fast on a phone, and giving has to be easy with one thumb.

Then track it the whole way through. Tokenize the link at send so you know which contact clicked. Put a pixel on your site. Connect Blackbaud, Fundraise Up, GoFundMe Pro, and Google Analytics so the gift ties back to the message that drove it. It is not rocket science. It is just the work most people skip.

What this means for your program

Most nonprofits barely use the channel. Seven fundraising texts a year is one every seven weeks. The orgs seeing outsized results are not sending more blasts. They are treating texting as a relationship channel: opt-in lists, timely asks tied to real moments, and messages people can reply to.

Supporters who opted in do not experience a well-timed text as spam. They experience it as a heads-up from an org they chose. That is the difference between tuning out and showing up.

How to start SMS fundraising the right way

1. Build permission first. Grow your opt-in list at events, services, and on your website. See easy text message sign-up.
2. Tie asks to moments. Launch, match, deadline, event. Timing is the advantage. Pair with text to give.
3. Keep the three-to-one ratio. Three impact, story, or update messages for every ask.
4. Let people reply. Two-way beats broadcast for second gifts and retention.
5. Measure like the benchmarks do: click-through, page completion, response rate, and revenue per 1,000 messages. Run your own numbers with our ROI calculator, and see the full method in how to calculate ROI for text messaging campaigns.

Ready to build the channel before your next campaign? Start with Rally.

FAQ

What is SMS fundraising?
Raising money through text messages: supporters opt in, receive asks and updates, and give via a secure link, often through a text-to-give keyword.

What's a good click-through rate for fundraising texts?
The 2026 sector average is 3.7%. On a permission-based, well-segmented list, Rally holds a 15% floor and puts it in writing. The gap is mostly about how the list was built.

What's a good response rate for fundraising texts?
The 2026 benchmark average is 0.17% for fundraising and 2.6% for advocacy texts. Opted-in, well-timed lists beat the average.

Is SMS fundraising worth it for small nonprofits?
The data says small orgs over-index: 3.1% of online revenue from mobile vs. 0.9% overall, and $0.20 per email dollar vs. $0.09. We think so, but let's talk through your use case and budget. If we don't think you'll get results, we'll tell you.

How many fundraising texts should we send?
The median org sent 7.3 all year. Frequency matters less than permission and timing. Keep three impact or update messages for every ask, and send when you have something worth their time.

How do we run an SMS fundraising campaign?
Build the opt-in list early, announce a keyword at the moment of the campaign, make giving one tap, and thank people fast. Details in our text to donate guide.