Using Mobile Phones for Fundraisingin the United States: Texting for A Cause

If you follow the mobile active blog, you'll know that in other areas of the world, using text messages to make a donation is commonplace.  Last Friday, Mobile Active reported on the Sunday’s Super Bowl launch of a United Way fund-raising campaign using mobile phone text messaging.  The campaign was also noted by Philanthropy 2173 Blog (Lucy Bernholz) who asks, "Texting votes to American Idol is old hat - will it work for giving?" and subsequently picked up by the Give and Take Bog.

The Mobile Active post provides some additional context about how the campaign was funded and mentions other Text-to-Give campaigns in America.

The program is made possible through a partnership of the National Football League, Mobile Accord, United Way, and the Mobile Giving Foundation, and supported by VeriSign. The Mobile Giving Foundation is a new nonprofit aimed at facilitating more efficient and cost-effective mobile fundraising in the United States. The donations from the program will go to support the "Hometown Huddle" program, a collaboration between the NFL and the United Way that brings NFL football players to local communities for youth fitness programs. According to the ad, one in three children in the United States is overweight or obese. Watch the 10-second commercial here on YouTube.

Previous mobile fundraising campaigns have included Text-to-Give campaigns to raise money during Hurricane Katrina and the Southern California fires this past October. In other countries, text-to-give programs are more common, with many interesting and innovative campaigns. You can read more on mobile fundraising around the world here on the MobileActive blog.

 

 

Comments

[Katrin]

Thanks, Beth :) We are trying to get an interview with the Mobile Giving Foundation folks but they are impossible to reach. Hmhmh.... This is potentially big news (i.e. no more carrier charges skimming off 50% of more off the donation) and we sure would like to hear more about it but so far, so nothing in terms of a response. We'll keep trying -- if need be with a door-knock :-)

Katrin

[Chris]

Interesting stuff.