Mobile

As you plot your fundraising strategy for 2011, it will become important to give some thought to how and if mobile giving might fit into your overall planning.

Apple’s policy of not allowing charitable donations to be easily made on the iPhone is raising the ire of some nonprofit leaders. Now a new petition urges the technology giant to make it easier for anyone to give on a smartphone.
The kerfuffle erupted after Apple reversed its decision to approve an application that would make it easier for people to support charity through their phones. For two months, people with iPhones could easily donate to a charity of their choice, using an application designed by PayPal. And then, they couldn’t.

The Salvation Army is tapping into the power of the mobile device this holiday season with the launch of a new iPhone® application to help strengthen fundraising for the organization’s iconic Red Kettle Campaign. Developed by Charity Dynamics, the Online Red Kettle iPhone app empowers individuals to conduct personal fundraising campaigns on behalf of The Salvation Army, all from the convenience of their mobile devices.  

mGive announced that it is powering the mobile donation industry’s first $25 text donation campaign launched by the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ). Through this campaign, individuals can text LIFE to 50555 to donate $25 to the ACLJ, an organization dedicated to protecting freedom, life, and religious liberties in the United States and internationally.

Charitable donations are shifting from collection trays and kettles to laptops and cellphones as more nonprofits turn to online and mobile fundraising.

From Facebook to Colorado Gives Day, high-tech campaigns are sweeping the nonprofit world.

Leveraging technology from Denver-based mGive, the Salvation Army is testing a text-message fundraiser this holiday season to supplement its traditional Red Kettle Christmas campaign.

It ushers in a new phase of mobile giving, which might soon include higher single-donation limits, corporate sponsors and deeper engagement between nonprofits and donors via texts.

Soon, you’ll be able to text message your donation to the local United Way.

Starting Nov. 22, the agency is using donation texting to reach out to younger generations and gen-Xers who don’t respond to the traditional appeals for contributions.

The United Way also hopes donation texting announcements will be made during sports games and other community events so donations can happen en masse

The ability to ask for more than $10 via cellphone has long been on charities’ fund-raising wishlist. And after this holiday season, that wish might just come true.

From now until December 31, two charities are conducting holiday campaigns that will test whether donors are willing to make $25 contributions via text messages.

The mGive Foundation (www.mgive.org), the leading 501(c)(3) public charity enabling and processing mobile donation campaigns in the United States, today announced that it has initiated a $25 mobile donation trial with most major domestic mobile carriers. The mobile donation trial raises the maximum mobile donation amount from $10 to $25, a first in the mobile donation industry.

Hawaii’s people and businesses are as generous as ever, despite the economic slump.

But how local people and businesses give is rapidly changing and that transformation has some nonprofit leaders heartened, while others are worried. Optimists welcome the decay of what they saw as paternalistic philanthropy. These optimists see the rise of a new philanthropy in which individual donors are more empowered, and nonprofit success is rewarded with recognition and more donations.

Texted donations currently are limited to $5 and $10 increments and capped by mobile phone companies at five a month from a single phone. Some nonprofits worry that they will cannibalize gifts that might come in larger amounts through more traditional channels like direct mail and online.

Perhaps most important, many nonprofits simply cannot afford the kind of promotional campaign needed to publicize mobile giving efforts, nor do they benefit from the kind of exposure that a round-the-clock, disaster-driven news event provides.