Most non-profits and political campaigns are more concerned with growing membership ranks. Text messaging provides an extremely simple
and inexpensive method to do just that. The minute a person texts-in, you’ve captured their phone number. You’ve also got a direct connection to that person no matter where or when they roam. Most organizations utilize this
direct connection to gather additional demographic data such as name, mailing address, and email address. This data is then used in conjunction with traditional outreach mechanisms to convert a person into a card-carrying member.

Example: Live events offer a particularly compelling scenario. At any given event or congregation of people, about 80% of the crowd will have a mobile phone in his or her pocket. In April 2005, Bono stopped his shows and asked the audience to text “ONE” to his text-in number in order to join his anti-poverty and AIDS campaign of the same name. Immediately after texting, participants’ names were scrolled across a giant screen. At each concert, an average of 10,000 responded. Via a series of follow-up texts, the campaign also gathered email addresses and now uses this to cull donations and to stimulate further action