image credit: dvids

NPR ran a story yesterday about the ability to donate money to Haiti relief efforts via your mobile phone. You can text “HAITI” to 90999 and a donation of $10 will be automatically charged to your phone bill and given to the Red Cross. Wyclef Jean, the musician from Haiti, is promoting another text effort for the Yele Haiti Earthquake Fund. Texting “Yele” to 501501 automatically adds $5 to the fund via your phone bill.

Reaching a Bigger Audience
This is a fantastic way to attract busy, younger want-to-be philanthropists. It’s fast, easy.

I think it’s a much more efficient way for non-profits to reach younger audiences. Think out-of-home advertising with the text call-to-action. I’m riding the subway to work and see a poster to donate. Or I’m hanging out in the University commons with friends and there’s signage with a message. I can do it right there. No cash or credit card needed. And I’ll still have a record of it. These are people with revolving addresses that may have never donated before. Hence, organizations might not ever reach them with their direct mailers or other traditional fund-raising campaigns.

How It Works
Mobile Giving Foundation (MGF) is the company that collects donations paid by mobile users from their cell phone companies and turns 100% of the donation over to the designated organization. To keep it simple, MGF uses set donations such as $5 or $10.

Downsides
The only problem I see right now is that even though the donation is immediate in the eyes of the donor, it can take up to 3 months for non-profits like Red Cross to actually receive your money. Hopefully the process will get speedier as this new philanthropic trend catches on.

In addition, colleague Jason Law mentioned that AT&T is charging fees for the text messages while verizon is not. MGF explains (via their site) that some charities have allowed them to keep 5-10% in order to cover administrative costs. I understand they have to pay their bills. But mobile carriers should be doing their good deed as a free middle man between givers and receivers — if not matching donations.

What U.S. Carriers Need
Though now emerging in North America, this is something that has been common in Europe for more than a decade. In 2004, Karri Ojanen was the lead designer on a team that created Village Life, a game-like fundraising effort that lets people help build virtual villages (with real-life counterparts) by making donations to development aid by SMS, credit card, and online banking. Players see the donation go through immediately on the screen. (There’s an English language version available as well.)

Karri says setting up SMS billing in Europe was easy, since SMS and MMS gateway services were readily available through a number of partners. However, now in Canada, he quickly learned that it’s difficult. Each carrier has wanted to hold on to their own gateway, not opening it for development. Therefore setting up SMS services across carriers has been virtually impossible.

That’s started to change in Canada, too. John Breton let on that Canadian carrier Rogers Wireless and Fido are running a similar campaign, allowing subscribers to text ‘”HELP” to 1291 to donate $5.
 
What do you think of this emerging way to donate? Will your fingers become philanthropic?

Sarah Jo Sautter