{"id":538,"date":"2021-07-11T04:54:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-10T18:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/messagemedia.com\/case-studies\/youth-opportunities-students-get-the-message-with-sms4act\/"},"modified":"2024-03-18T04:47:30","modified_gmt":"2024-03-18T04:47:30","slug":"youth-leadership-non-profit-improving-student-engagement-sms","status":"publish","type":"case-studies","link":"https:\/\/messagemedia.com\/au\/case-studies\/youth-leadership-non-profit-improving-student-engagement-sms\/","title":{"rendered":"Youth leadership non-profit improving student engagement through SMS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Youth Opportunities Association<\/a> (SA) Inc (Youth Opportunities) is a South Australian not-for-profit organisation that facilitates personal leadership programs for young people. They aim to provide participants with the skills and attitudes they need to become confident, motivated, and successful individuals. To date, over 13,000 young people across 80 schools have benefited from personal leadership training. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Youth Opportunities is an Act Today<\/a> customer and has been using MessageMedia’s SMS service through Act! since December 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Act!<\/a> is a customer relationship management (CRM) software application that is used to keep track of client and prospect details in a single database that can be shared by multiple users. SMS4Act!<\/a> is an integrated text message solution that allows users to quickly and easily send text messages to one or more contacts from Act!. The message is recorded against the contact\u2019s record along with any replies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leading the way: Helping students develop strategic leadership skills<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Youth Opportunities needed a more efficient and effective way for trainers to communicate with students. Trainers were using personal mobile phones to call or send text messages regarding program logistics to students, which was extremely time-consuming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RELATED:<\/strong> Find out how SMS can enhance educational outcomes and remote learning<\/a> for students anywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, phone calls take time and are less likely to be answered, resulting in the need to make more calls. Nina Pullen, Youth Opportunities Training and Program Administrator, said that the main issues regarding this practice were in relation to communication effectiveness and efficiency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Most trainers have a workload of about three programs \u2015 with each program containing about 18 students. The process of sending an individual SMS from a personal phone was very time-consuming, and therefore trainers would only send the most important information to a student.<\/p>\nNina Pullen, Training and Program Administrator, Youth Opportunities<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

SMS4Act: Seamless CRM integration for text messaging<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 2006, Act! integrated text messaging functionality into its software application, allowing users to quickly and easily send texts to one or more contacts directly from within the application. The message is saved against a contact record along with any replies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When we first heard of SMS4Act! from our Act Today account manager, we were immediately interested. SMS4Act! allows us to contact as many students as we need to without messaging costs or time being an obstacle.<\/p>\nNina Pullen, Training and Program Administrator, Youth Opportunities<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Youth Opportunities use SMS because they know that it is the most effective way to contact students. “We work with Year 10 students and this means that text messaging is the number one preferred communication method<\/strong><\/em>,” says Pullen.<\/p>\n\n\n\r\n

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\r\n Add text messaging to your training toolbelt. <\/h2>\r\n\r\n

Easily integrate SMS into your existing systems.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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