Tamar Snyder writing in The Jewish Week: Mobile phone giving has hit a tipping point, says Lucy Bernholz, a longtime adviser to philanthropic foundations who is also a well-respected blogger and analyst of philanthropic trends. Among Jewish organizations, the American Jewish World Service and the JDC are among the first to try their hands at mobile giving campaigns, while the UJA-Federation of New York has launched the Chai Society, which enables recent college graduates to donate $18 a month to the UJA by texting the word “Chai” to 58126. The question is how successful these campaigns are and whether other Jewish organizations, especially those not involved in disaster relief and recovery efforts, will jump on the bandwagon, as well. ... Currently, only 500 of the more than one million … Continue Reading
FrontGate and MobileGive Create Text-Giving Strategy
FrontGate Media has announced an agreement with MobileGive to provide text-based, mobile fundraising strategy and services to the faith-based market. According to the Mobile Giving Foundation $30 million has been raised for Haiti relief via text donations. That's a six-fold increase over all of 2009. With 3.6 billion worldwide text message subscribers and more than 60% reported as "active texters," mobile fundraising has quickly emerged as a critical part of an overall fundraising strategy for non-profits of any size. The ability to connect with audiences at the moment of emotional engagement has proven to be most effective through mobile text messaging (SMS). SMS texts have an estimated 90% or more read rate and offer a highly secure environment for communication without suffering the spam … Continue Reading
Pros and Cons of Donating via Text Messaging
from Business Week: Haiti Earthquake Provokes Wave of Text Donations It's unclear yet whether the text campaigns will succeed in raising more money overall for Haitian relief efforts by convincing the younger generation to give, or whether the phenomenon represents a shift in the way people give, rather than an expansion of generosity. Another open question is whether individuals who have access to corporate matching contributions - thus doubling the impact of individual donations - will bother to do so with the text donations. (Some corporate matching funds won't match donations under a certain amount.) "We don't have benchmarks for this yet," says Katherina Rosqueta, executive director of the Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the University of Pennsylvania. "The power is in the … Continue Reading
Are You Mobile Friendly?
Welcome to the mobile Internet! No question, Internet users are leaving their laptops behind in favor of phones, and organizations that aren’t prepared to ride the mobile wave are likely to lose a share of their audience. It’s a real challenge, especially for small nonprofits without their own IT wizards to wave a magic mouse and make an iPhone-friendly website appear. With that end in mind, here from Wild Apricot are two quick ways to make your organization’s blog or website a little more “phone-friendly”. And if you're wondering why, here are some new stats from Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project: 32% have used a mobile phone or Smartphone to access the internet for emailing, instant-messaging, or research; this is an increase of 33% since December … Continue Reading
CharityFinder Coming to iPhone
from The NonProfit Times: Donor Apps For iPhone iPhone users will soon be able to make donations to their favorite charity directly through their phone once a new application gains approval from Apple. CharityFinder 2.0 will include more than 1,800 nonprofits, the ability to donate directly to a nonprofit, and a feature highlighting local events for each nonprofit that can be updated daily. … Continue Reading
Mobile Giving: Coming Soon to a Phone Near You
What is Mobile Giving? Mobile giving, the act of donating to a cause through one’s cell phone, is the newest thing in philanthropy. Spurred by the Millennial Generation (born 1982-2002), mobile giving is taking off. The technology has advanced to a simple system, and the largest U.S. providers of cell phone service have agreed to include these small donations (usually $5 or $10) on their customers’ cell phone bills without any additional charge. take a look: Recently, Alicia Keys went on a concert tour. During her performances she played a video from her film, made during a recent tour of that continent. Then, Alicia asked concert goers to pull out their cell phones and text the word “ALIVE” to a particular number. More than 8,000 people did so right at the concerts, raising more … Continue Reading
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