Customer Story
How SMS helped Bellingen coordinate volunteers when speed mattered most
Overview
Challenge: Find a fast, reliable, low-effort way to communicate with volunteers and coordinators during a crisis, after email and manual phone calls proved too slow and ineffective.
Solution: Use SMS broadcasts to reach registered volunteers and coordinators quickly, with minimal setup and a channel people were more likely to read and respond to.
Results: Stronger response rates, faster community engagement and a more dependable communication channel during urgent call-outs. The first SMS broadcast achieved a 30% response rate, outperforming email.
“We’re getting a really high response rate to our text... it’s much more reliable because we know it’s getting there, they don’t bounce or get sent into a junk folder. And people read their texts much more quickly.“
Bellingen Shire Council moved quickly in April 2020 to help protect its regional New South Wales community from the effects of COVID-19. After the Black Summer bushfires had already exposed how limited outside support could be in a crisis, local leaders knew they needed a stronger community-led response. That led to the creation of the Neighbourhood Care Network (NCN), a grassroots support network designed to connect volunteers, coordinators and vulnerable residents who might need help. But once the network was up and running, one major challenge became clear: how to communicate with hundreds of people quickly and reliably.
Replacing slow, unreliable outreach with SMS
In the early days of the NCN, the team tried using email to keep volunteers and coordinators informed. It quickly became clear that email was too slow and difficult to manage. Kerry Pearse, NCN Coordinator, described the process as clunky and time-consuming, with many messages failing to get through at all. Response rates were weak, averaging 8.4%, and one email push to encourage coordinators to attend a Zoom session resulted in only 12 of 92 recipients showing up. Manual phone calls were not a workable backup either. With more than 90 coordinators to contact, one-to-one outreach was exhausting and unsustainable.
The NCN needed a communication channel that could be set up quickly, was easy for people to use, and would actually get read. SMS stood out as the most practical option. After finding support online, the team was able to get started with Sinch Engage (formerly MessageMedia) within a day. Soon after, Kerry sent the first SMS broadcast to 504 registered volunteers. That message generated a 30% response rate — a major improvement over email and clear proof that text messaging could help the network communicate at the speed the situation demanded.
Stronger response rates when the community needed to act
Once SMS became part of the NCN’s communication approach, the team saw a clear improvement in engagement. Over the following two months, SMS helped the network create a more immediate and interactive connection with volunteers and coordinators. For one passive call-out asking coordinators to help shape the future of the network, the response rate reached 26% within the first hour. For a more urgent call-out to help stock the “Cupboard of Plenty” — a community food donation point for people experiencing hardship — response rates climbed to almost 50% via SMS.
For Kerry and the NCN team, the value of SMS went beyond metrics. It gave them a dependable way to reach people directly, without worrying about bounced emails, spam folders or long delays in being seen. It also opened up a more personal, two-way form of communication with the community. Even as demand eased, the network saw long-term value in keeping SMS available for future emergencies or renewed local action. As Kerry put it, if the team ever needed to get the word out quickly again, SMS was a good way to do it.
