Scholarship communication with applicants via text
Many students do not check their emails or voicemails on a regular basis. Some do not even set up their voicemail boxes. Texting is their primary mode of communication. Having the capability of texting messages to the applicant might speed up their response to our requests.
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Febra Gaitan commented
Integrating a texting option would be ideal. Texting is the preferred method of communication nowadays. Also, please consider the pricing of the texting option to be competitive with other text programs in the market.
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Kendra Norton commented
At this point - we are willing to pay for a texting service along side SLM - Having the ability for it to integrate with SLM would be ideal.
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Deirdre commented
In January last year Foundant asked for numbers - how many texts we might want to send per year. I think that is where the idea stopped. Agreed it would be a very difficult number to determine.
Has any more research been done? Is there some further data you might need to move this project along? Thank you Foundant - we love you -
Deirdre commented
Any movement on this idea? It would be so useful
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Beth commented
I would love this feature! Many emails do go in to student spam inboxes and they just don't take the time to mark the sender as safe.
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Deirdre commented
Any action on this feature - would really value it
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Jodi Kateiva commented
This would be wonderful! I would like a much larger volume; it would also be a good way to communicate with students during the application process. We have 700- 800 applicants each year so 2500 would be better for us, but I'll take what I can get :)
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Anonymous commented
I would think it would 1,000 or less per year for our foundation.
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Deirdre commented
Hi Sammie,
What is the possibility and maybe timeframe of adding this feature to Foundant? -
Katie Stout commented
500-1,000 would work for us.
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Lisa Williams commented
This is a great idea. I currently send texts from my Mac. We provide scholarships to children of employees and often the parents do not use computers but everyone has a smart phone.
I think 1000 would be great! Thanks -
Mary Perrine commented
This would be extremely helpful!
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Liz McClure commented
We would primarily like to use it for follow-up reminders, probably 200-300/year for those since most of our applicants are great about completing the follow-ups in a timely manner.
If it were easy though I could see us using it to remind students to submit their application and/or award decisions. That would get us to 1,000/year easily.
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Beth commented
We typically have around 150 applicants per year, but only award 50 scholarships. I would want to text them 3-5 times per year so we would really only need about 250-300 messages per year, but it would also be great to text anyone who applies about various deadlines (usually 150 apply per year). If 1,000 is possible I would love that flexibility.
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Laurie Abildso commented
Thank you, Foundant, for considering the addition of a text option. At this point, we would likely be sending less than 1,000 per year.
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Deirdre commented
I believe the ability to text would be another tool to get students to reply - even if it just says - check your email. Of course, if it has the ability to be used in a more comprehensive communication tool that would be wonderful. Whilst initially I would like to text each student twice per year, I suspect, if we had that ability, it would be used much more often and to reach out to committees etc.
Loved to hear Foundant is listening. -
Julia Da Silva commented
At a base level, I think we would do about 600-800 messages per year (3-4 messages for about 200 students). This would just be if we communicated with current recipients about checks being mailed, reports being due, and maybe an extra FYI about FAFSA or our emergency assistance fund.
Ideally we could also do the following:
- increase to maybe 6-8 messages per year to those 200ish students so it's not just due dates, but also about events or other scholarship opportunities
- text students with applications still in draft near the deadline (maybe +/- 300 messages)
- have options for 1-1 texting with some students rather than one mass text to 200+ studentsThanks for considering!!
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Carla Batts commented
We recently sent out a mass communication email with a deadline to respond and some of our grant partners didn't receive it. Would like to use text as an alternative when needed as some of our partners prefer text vs. email and to ensure they actually receive the communication (particularly when we need a response by a certain date). We don't award scholarships so really hoping this functionality can be added to GLM as well. I think 1,000 texts or less per year would be plenty for us.
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Andrea Clements commented
We would also use this functionality. We have around 200 applicants per year and would use text messages to remind of their application being in draft status, remind to fill out their follow up form (scholarship acceptance form), etc. We would easily use over 1,000 text messages per scholarship season.
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Danielle Fleer commented
About 100-300 students abandon requests every year, so a reminder or two per year = 600 high end
400 renewals each year, so a reminder to fill out form = 400It would also be nice to remind about the annual award event to new scholars, about a 100 new scholars per year = 100
Also would be nice to send a general check in text in December/mid-year = 400
I could also see us expanding programs and utilizing more texting in the future.So, I'd say around 1,000 would be used, and 2,000 or more would be even better.
This would be a huge help to our staff! Thanks!