Text Giving: A Tool, Not a Miracle

But here's the washing-windows-with-a-drill part: If you pushed just one person to give via mobile who otherwise would have given by any other medium, you lost a rather large bunch of money. (See sidebar.)

I have to wonder how many of those 300,000-some text donations that went to the Red Cross could have been $90 Web gifts that also meant warm bodies who just might give again some day. How many people scratched their philanthropic itch with a quick, anonymous 10 bucks — when they might have happily gone online and joined the ranks of connected and considerably more valuable donors?