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How Does ‘Text to Give’ Work Anyway?

Today’s post comes from ILACSD’s Development & Marketing Coordinator, Jessica Green!

Here at ILACSD we are always looking for new and innovative ways to reach more San Diegans and change the way they think about and treat the natural world around them. I think we all know that doing that isn’t free, and as a nonprofit organization we sometimes have to get creative in how we raise the money needed to provide environmental education, conduct countywide cleanups and run our one stop recycling resource WasteFreeSD.org.

Recently we launched our first ever Text to Give campaign where our supporters (that’s you!) can text the word CLEAN to 80888 and donate $10 to help us do those things. The first question most people ask us when they hear that is, “So how does this Text to Give thing work anyway?”

You send a text message. No, really. That’s the hardest thing you have to do! You text the keyword CLEAN to the number 80888 and you’ll receive a reply asking you to confirm that you would like to donate to ILACSD. Text back the word YES and you’re done! Ok, technically you have to send two text messages 🙂

The donation shows up on your next cell phone bill. No personal information is required, you’ll see the donation on your bill and you pay your bill just like you always do.

Your cell phone provider sends us your donation. After you pay your bill, your cell phone provider gathers all of the donations together and sends a check to ILACSD. Right now the program only works if you have Verizon, AT&T, Sprint or T-Mobile.

So what can we do with your donation? That is the million dollar question right? Or ten dollar question in this case 🙂

With your $10 donation we can mobilize 20 volunteers at a cleanup event in our community. On average, our volunteers pick up an amazing 15 pounds of trash and debris each. So, your one text message will remove 300 pounds of trash from San Diego’s beaches, bays, creeks, and canyons!

That is one really small action that leads to a really big impact.

Now, whip out your phone and send that text! Or if you’re reading this one your phone, stop now and send that text! And encourage your friends and family to do the same. Think about it like this, if you and two friends text CLEAN to 80888 you can remove almost 1,000 pounds of trash from the local environment and you don’t even have to get off of your couch!

If you have any questions about our text to give campaign, feel free to contact me at jgreen@cleansd.org.