Case Study: East Harlem Fellowship

East Harlem Fellowship increases member giving by 30% through Text to Give

East Harlem Fellowship Needed to Expand Their Giving Options

Sofia Alvarez works as both the treasurer and executive director for East Harlem Fellowship in New York. She is also part of the board of directors, which means she needs to work as efficiently as possible to maintain her balancing act of responsibilities. Efficiency became paramount in 2020, when in-person services were no longer possible in light of COVID-19.

Without being able to host in-person services, it became harder for East Harlem Fellowship’s congregation to financially support the church through their tithes. Fortunately, they had switched to Aplos Text to Give in December, which turned out to be the perfect solution for remote services. “With Text to Give, people can easily give during online services, so the two coincide very well together,” Sofia said.

Previously, East Harlem Fellowship provided an option for people to give online through Paypal, but they wanted to empower their people to give in the moment during services via their mobile devices. With Aplos Text to Give, people could tithe with a simple text message once they completed a few easy steps for setup.

How East Harlem Fellowship Launched Text to Give

1. Added a phone number to the Sunday announcement where members could text gifts

2. Pastor provided a short tutorial to show how easy it was to set up

3. Text to Give announcement was added to the website

4. A Text to Give banner was included at the bottom of their livestreams

The Results

Giving has ramped up considerably since the start of online services, with 20% of active donors now giving online, and Text to Give accounting for 15% of overall giving. “The launch was a success mainly because of the simplicity,” Sofia said. “People want everything to be done easily these days, and Text to Give offers that. Even if COVID-19 didn’t exist, we still want to offer this solution to the congregation, since people typically prepare their tithes at home by writing checks, but sometimes forget them.”

Download the East Harlem Fellowship case study (PDF).

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