O2 makes text donations free for charities 3

Fundraising | Celina Ribeiro | 26 Jul 2010

O2 has become the second mobile operator to pledge to deliver 100 per cent of all text donation value to charities in a move which could signal an industry-wide shift.

Mobile operator O2 announced today that from 1 August this year it will pass on the entire value of text donations made to charities from its customers via the use of short-codes with the prefix ‘70’. It comes just three weeks after Vodafone became the first UK operator to declare that it would pass on the entirety of all donations worth more than £1.

In what had been a positive development, O2 last November announced that it would pass on 90 per cent of all donations, with the remainder to cover network and other costs, but will now absorb those costs.

This month’s announcements from Vodafone and O2 come after a years-long battle by the sector, led by nfpSynergy’s Joe Saxton, for operators to dump the fees on text donations. The Institute of Fundraising launched a campaign in 2006 to encourage operators to slash their fees (which then amounted to 55p per £1.50 donation), only to abandon the effort in the face of stiff opposition from the operators. Saxton then revived the campaign in late 2008 in a bid to get movement on the issue.

Research conducted by nfpSynergy at the end of 2008 had also found that the fees put off otherwise willing young mobile phone users from donating via text.

Other mobile companies have yet to respond to the moves by the two providers, but if they do the impact on the sector could be significant. A study produced by the Institute of Fundraising and the Charities Aid Foundation last summer predicted that text message donations could be worth £100m a year to the sector by 2015 – a figure which now seems much less pie in the sky.

Directory: Charities Aid Foundation | Institute of Fundraising | nfpSynergy
Who's Who: Joe Saxton

Place a comment

David Hoy
Marketing
instaGiv
18 Aug 2010

For any charity interested in how to avail of the opportunities within mobile fundraising we (instaGiv) run free webinars here:

http://instagiv.com/blog

We are happy to provide as much help & support as we can to anyone with an interest in furthering their charities aims through mobile.

[Reply]

Joe Saxton
Driver of Ideas
nfpSynergy
13 Aug 2010

If you want to start using text donations its easiest, particularly for a small charity to use an agency. Two that you could try are vir2 (http://www.vir2.co.uk/) or instagive (http://www.instagiv.co.uk/). If you don't want to use an agency you would have to work direct with an aggregator and find your own shortcode both of which are more time-consuming

[Reply]

James E Buggy
Fundraiser
Contact Hostel.
9 Aug 2010

We are a small stand alone Charity here in Manchester working with homeless teenage girls.How do we or who do we contact to benefit from the text donations from Vodaphone and O2.
Regards, Jim Buggy.

[Reply]

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.