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.

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+ students

Thanks for considering!!

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.

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.

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 = 400

It 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!

Our feeling is that it is more than 500 and would be more if it were easier. The times you mentioned and also need some sort of information, such as a new address or a change of schools. We set up a Google account to get an "anonymous" phone number for sending and receiving texts. Then set up a rule to forward any incoming texts to our Education Officer's email.

I could see us sending in excess of 1,000 messages per year.
* 1-2 texts to students about opps they may be eligible for
* 1-2 texts to students reminding them of the deadline
* 1-2 texts to awarded students for follow-up information
* texts to reviewers

@ 400+ applicants annually, and 200 awardees, we would probably approach 2,000 texts

Hope this helps!

"I would say we probably send anywhere between 1000-2000 messages to students. 2000 seems high but because we represent such a large service area, a lot of my messages are reminders of deadlines and to let students know they need to check their emails. "- Lezette Parks, Scholarship Officer CFWNC - uses Smarter Select to process Scholarship apps - because of the texting capability.

Our volume would be much lower than 1,000 messages per year. We mainly need to be able to communicate with students for reminders for follow ups. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to get students to respond to emails. I often find that they don't even open them. A text option would be so much easier!

We've texted our student for the past 3 years through a third-party integration our scholarship software developer found. It wasn't difficult or expensive to add it to our program. Even though we are switching to SLM this year, the absence of texting feels like we are going backwards and I am concerned about losing students.

We text students to: remind about deadlines, notify if we add a scholarship after they have submiited, reminders for follow-ups and to generally create interest.

Our website developer mentioned Twillio to me yesterday. He said it is free and very easy to use. Please look into whether it could be used for texting. Texting is often the only way I can get a response from some of the student applicants and award recipients. It is definitely their preferred method of communication. Emails go unanswered!

Sammie, my scholarship manager agrees with the items you outlined. She would like the option to do these from Foundant!

Sammie, I have recently started using "ClickSend" as a text service. I didn't have it before the last scholarship round, but I am hopeful to use it for reminding students of follow-up deadlines.

I agree, I use a whole separate platform and organization to send out texts to my scholarship students. It would be so nice if I can do it all from Foundant!