Did you know US non-profits can collect charitable contributions via SMS text message? Consumers donate using just their mobile phone with the charge showing up on their monthly phone bill.
Mobile Giving Insider is the leading resource for information and all the latest news about mobile giving and charitable donations over SMS.
Watch the Fox Q13 call-to-action for the 5th Annual Children’s Holiday Campaign.
Combining your calls-to-action with other forms of media (TV, online, print, etc) is the best way to increase user engagement.
Try it! Text MEALS to 20222 to give $5 to the Children’s Holiday Campaign.
Big Cat Rescue recently launched a mobile giving program to raise funds to rescue a liger and 2 tigers! Their campaign was started with videos on You Tube showcasing the big cats and urging people to donate. The first 50 people to give get an animal print, unisex bracelet that says “I support Big Cat Rescue.”
Try it! Text LIGER to 20222 to donate $5 to Big Cat Rescue
The mGive blog has a nice case study about using radio as a call to action for mobile donations. KIIS FM, based in Los Angeles, hosted an on-air fundraiser with radio personality Ryan Seacrest to benefit the Children’s Hospital of Orange County. They were able to raise almost $9,000 via text message donations!
Try it! Text CHOC to 90999 to donate $5 to The Children’s Hospital of Orange County
Up until very recently, AT&T required the use of the Amdocs/QPass system for mobile donations. If a user texted GIVE to a giving shortcode, the confirmation text would come back from a different number - a special AT&T number. This made for a pretty confusing user experience.
AT&T has recently changed their policy, allowing the confirmation request to come from the shortcode itself. This is a great step in the right direction towards improving the consumer experience when donating via SMS.
From the article
Mobile donations are said to have crossed $500,000 in 2008, indicating the growing acceptance of a new channel for nonprofits to raise funds for causes.
This is obviously a really encouraging statistic for everyone. Let’s hope this number continues to grow as predicted in 2009!
There are a number of application service providers currently working with the Mobile Giving Foundation to enable non-profits to manage their mobile giving campaigns.
Contact the individual vendors for more information about features and pricing.
As a non-profit, you will need to work with one of the approved service providers. Each vendor provides their own set of services, reporting, APIs, and other features on top of the basic donation capabilities. Contact the individual vendors for more details and pricing.
Mobile Giving Foundation API
Mobile Giving Foundation API - The MGF provides both a SOAP & REST API for their service. Contact the MGF for more details about their API.
Client Libraries
The following is a collection of open source client libraries written for the Mobile Giving Foundation API.
Please send any new developer resources to developers@mobiledonationsinsider.com.
3rd Party Giving APIs
For those non-profits who want to build innovative new fundraising applications, a number of vendors provide APIs to their platforms. These APIs often include the ability to initiate donations and collect real-time reporting statistics. For more information, please contact the individual vendors.
