Q-and-A With Michael Kondratick, Director of Grassroots Advocacy, JDRF

Another thing we've been able to do since we've been experimenting with it is make a lot of our existing programs easier to participate in. For instance, JDRF's big fundraising event at the chapter level is a walk. So we've got probably over the course of a year 100 [events] nationwide. Without mobile, our efforts to engage people in the advocacy program at the walk and to collect information all center around filling out what many people at the walk would find to be a kind of annoying registration form. It's a carnival-like atmosphere at these walks, like most fundraising events. Most people have their cell phones with them, so given the option to sign up via mobile, all they simply have to do is text a key word to our short code. We register the mobile number, ping them back a thank-you message via mobile, and ask them to submit their e-mail to us in a second text message and then they're done. And then we can take the opportunity later to follow up and get the rest of their information. So it's been an invaluable tool in instances like that to make our existing programs more efficient.

FS: Do you plan on using mobile for fundraising at all?
MK: I think of our mobile efforts in two separate channels. The channel I just discussed and the mobile giving channel. The mobile giving channel has not been used by JDRF. It actually took us a good while to get all of it approved through all the mobile carriers through the Mobile Giving Foundation. That was actually wrapped up two weeks ago. So really at this point we're looking for our first opportunity to really use it. My guess is it's going to come up in one form or another during November for National Diabetes Awareness Month. I actually already had a conversation with one chapter that is interested in using it for their national awareness activities, and I assume we will have more conversations like that in between then and now.

FS: What communications have been replaced by mobile?
MK: We would rely heavily obviously upon e-mail. We also had to follow up with direct phone calls to people, to encourage them to take action. So it's a little bit clunky and time consuming for the staff. We have a big advocacy event every other year in June called Children's Congress where we have 150 families across the country attend. The highlight is we have a hearing on Capitol Hill, and those families lobby their congressmen for more diabetes funding. So it's a pretty competitive environment to get chosen for the program. We select 150 families out of about 1,500 applications. So basically they have a one in 10 chance. We accumulate all of those applications through a lot of standard channels. We used more social media this time around as we were getting the applications; we started collecting them last summer.