What a Fundraising Text Raises: 27.9 Million Texts, Measured
Most fundraising programs measure clicks. Few measure dollars per text.
We measured it on one program, from donation data rather than clicks.
4.4 cents per text.
The Program
A national fundraising program. The window was September 3 to October 5, 2026: 33 days in the busiest stretch of the cycle.
- Texts sent: 27.9 million fundraising texts
- Raised: $1.23 million in donations attributed to text, net of refunds
- Gifts: 56,784 from 18,901 donors, about three gifts per donor
- Average gift: $21.68. Median gift: $20.90
- Recurring: 21% of gifts
The full case study is on our customers page.
How We Measured It
Numbers like this are only worth what the method is worth, so here is the method.
Donations come from the donation platform, not from clicks. The program's donation platform sends every gift to Political Comms. Each gift carries the source tags the program put on its links.
A gift counts as a text donation when its tag says text. The program tags its text links consistently, and nearly all of its tagged gifts in the window came from text. Gifts tagged to other channels are excluded.
Refunds are subtracted. The $1.23 million is net.
Texts are counted from sends, not plans. 27.9 million is what was sent, from the program's own send records.
Two limits apply. This is last-touch attribution: a donor who read the text, then gave a day later from an email, counts as email. And it is one program, with an established list, at the peak of the cycle.
What 4.4 Cents Means for Planning
Per-text yield turns fundraising volume into a forecast.
At 4.4 cents, a million texts raises about $44,000. A program that knows its own number can size a deadline push before it sends, rather than read the result after.
The number moves with what goes into it:
- Delivery. A send that finishes on time reaches donors while the deadline is still real. A send that runs late, or gets filtered, raises nothing for the texts that never arrive.
- Recurring asks. One gift in five here was recurring, which keeps paying after the send ends.
Across the Platform
One program is a measurement. The platform is an estimate.
Fundraising programs on Political Comms sent more than 222 million fundraising texts in 2026 through early October. Applying half the measured rate, 2.2 cents per text, to that volume puts donations raised by those programs at roughly $5 million this year.
That figure is an estimate, deliberately conservative, and labeled as one. Programs that connect their donation platform can compute their own number, measured rather than estimated.
Measure Your Own
Connect your donation platform, tag every text link with a consistent source, and divide what text raised by what you sent.
That is the number that decides how much to send next week.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a fundraising text raise?
In the program measured here, 4.4 cents per text: $1.23 million in donations attributed to text across 27.9 million fundraising texts sent from September 3 to October 5, 2026. Results vary by list, offer, and timing. A program's own number comes from its own donation data.
How are donations attributed to text?
The donation platform sends each gift to Political Comms with the source tags the program set on its links. A gift counts as a text donation when its source or medium tag names text. This is last-touch attribution.
Will my program see the same number?
It is one program in the most active weeks of a cycle, with an established donor list. Programs earlier in the cycle, or building a list from scratch, should expect less per text. That is why the platform-wide estimate in this post uses half the measured rate.
How do I measure my own program's return per text?
Connect your donation platform so gifts flow back automatically, tag every text link with a consistent source, and divide donations attributed to text by fundraising texts sent over the same window.