SMS donations 'will be bigger than payroll giving' 2

Fundraising | Celina Ribeiro | 1 Jul 2009

Text message donations could be worth up to £100m a year to the sector in five years time, according to new research released today.

If cost barriers were removed the value of fundraising via mobile phone could reach £96m before gift aid, exceeding the annual income charities receive from payroll giving, nfpSynergy’s Joe Saxton told a gathering of politicians and civil society representatives in central London this morning.

The research - the culmination of a year’s work by Charities Aid Foundation, the Institute of Fundraising and nfpSynergy - found that the high cost of making donations via mobile phone and charities’ ignorance of how to use the medium are the main barriers to civil society embracing text messages.

But if mobile phone companies could be convinced to reduce or waive their fees – typically 50–60p per donation – a “renaissance of direct response public advertising” could soon spring up in the sector, Saxton argued.

At present 41 per cent of charities do not use text messaging for fundraising or communications, yet four out of five store supporters’ mobile phone numbers on their databases.

The report authors hope that their research will encourage increased use of mobile phones for fundraising and communications.

Directory: Charities Aid Foundation | Institute of Fundraising
Who's Who: Celina Ribeiro

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Robert McAllen
Program Manager
Blackbaud
5 Jun 2009

Could we be doing something in the interim though? Mobile Internet provides a great opportunity surely? I've suggested something like this in my blog.

http://forums.blackbaud.com/blogs/robertmcallen/archive/2009/05/26/why-is-sms-in-decline-for-fundraising.aspx

[Reply]

Peter Fry
iWord Ltd
3 Jun 2009

It is scandelous that the best way a charity can raise funds cannot happen because operators take such a substantial cut of all texts. A company hapy to give a prize for a competition would get a much better return if they could get a charity to use texting but why should greedy Operators get so much?

[Reply]

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