Their Challenge

Connecting with Prospective Teachers Nationwide

With a national recruiting footprint, City Teaching Alliance needed a scalable communication strategy that would reliably reach ideal candidates primarily in their 20’s. That meant expanding beyond email and phone calls.

"If you're going to reach this demographic, you just have to be using texts in some way." -Marce Scarbrough, Director of Information Technology Operations

Younger candidates are more comfortable on their phones than on email or video calls, and the less formal nature of SMS helps reduce the sense of intimidation that can accompany a long, high-touch recruitment process.

"Texting has really become a core part of how we build relationships with candidates. Recruiting teachers is a very long, high-touch process, and texting helps us maintain that momentum." -Bix Lowsley-Williams, Assistant Director of Recruitment and Partnerships

That accessibility matters especially for early-career candidates who may feel intimidated by the formality of the application process itself.

"We see a lot of imposter syndrome among our younger candidates. And so when we think about how do we build a relationship where it feels like we can be there at the drop of a hat, even if we're not going to reply until 8 a.m. the next business day, it's an easy place where they can go back to." -Bix Lowsley-Williams, Assistant Director of Recruitment and Partnerships

Solution

Mogli for Easy Salesforce Texting

In 2019, after a recommendation from their Salesforce consulting partner, City Teaching Alliance turned to Mogli. The deciding factors: text messaging with deep Salesforce integration, flexibility to slot into existing engagements, and support for both one-on-one conversations and large-scale, automated drip campaigns.

“When we got it all set up, it just worked seamlessly. We didn't have to keep massaging it. It just worked really well.” -Marce Scarbrough, Director of Information Technology Operations

With Mogli inside Salesforce, staff can query Salesforce for highly specific lists and reach them instantly. Every message sent and every reply received logs automatically back to the Salesforce record, giving staff a full, running conversation history for each applicant without ever leaving their CRM.

Salesforce Flow-Driven Drip Campaigns

Much of City Teaching Alliance's messaging runs through Salesforce Flows, which trigger outbound SMS automatically based on where a prospect is in the pipeline.

“It really is that integration between the two tools [Salesforce and Mogli] that makes it so valuable.”
-Marce Scarbrough, Director of Information Technology Operations

At the top of the funnel, drip campaigns over text messages build awareness and cultivate interest across large prospect lists. As candidates narrow their focus by subject area, grade level, or location, messaging becomes more targeted. While City Teaching Alliance typically pairs each SMS with a corresponding email at every touchpoint, candidates who receive SMS are more likely to respond than those who receive email alone, making text messaging an important driver of engagement.

Bulk Messaging

Every Spring, City Teaching Alliance uses Mogli to send tens of thousands of program acceptance notifications over SMS.

"The mass sends are the real advantage that Mogli brings that we can't do with just the normal kind of tools that we use." -Marce Scarbrough, Director of Information Technology Operations

During active campaigns, a team of four to five staff members monitors the Mogli Inbox in real time, fielding inbound questions and routing prospects to the right regional or subject-matter expert as needed.

Region & Team-Specific Gateways

Before Mogli, staff were texting program candidates from a mixture of personal phones and Google Voice numbers. This was a huge pain point for City Teaching Alliance, as their candidates were receiving texts from four or five different unknown numbers and understandably wondering if it was a scam.

Team-specific gateways solved this. Now, every message tied to a location comes from a single, recognizable number, building the trust needed to discuss sensitive information over SMS.

Program Participant Communications

Beyond recruiting, City Teaching Alliances supports current program participants throughout their 4-year training with text reminders (e.g., portfolio requirements, form submissions, and Saturday session details). Every message sent and received through Mogli is automatically tied to the participant's record in Salesforce, making it easy to pick up a conversation mid-stream or hand off between team members without losing context.

“With Mogli’s conversation view, it's not just a text sent into the ether and a response that doesn't have any kind of context. It's a real tight integration between the two.” -Marce Scarbrough, Director of Information Technology Operations

Results

Scaling a National Educator Pipeline

Since adopting Mogli in 2019, City Teaching Alliance has built a robust SMS operation. Annually, they send over 100,000 text messages across more than 10 gateways to support prospect outreach, application processing, and program communications.

City Teaching Alliance measures Mogli's impact against their recruitment funnel, tracking candidate progression from prospect registration through application submission, final interviews, offers extended, and offer acceptance. SMS has consistently proven to be the strongest driver of conversions at each stage.

"It's clear not only from our experience but from the market research that we do that SMS is an integral part of the recruitment process." -Bix Lowsley-Williams, Assistant Director of Recruitment and Partnerships

Text messaging has become an essential part of how City Teaching Alliance finds, engages, and develops the next generation of teachers. As their program grows and their communication needs evolve, Mogli grows with them.