Abandon text donation fees, Institute tells Orange and T-Mobile

Fundraising | Celina Ribeiro | 14 Apr 2011

The Institute of Fundraising is calling on its organisational members to lobby the new mobile operator Everything Everywhere to drop its fees and pass the entire value of text donations made on its network to charities.

The company, formed in the merger of Orange and T-Mobile, is now the only major mobile network to not funnel 100 per cent of donations made via text on their phones to the charities, after O2, Vodafone and Virgin changed their models.

Institute members have today received a letter urging them to lobby the Everything Everywhere’s vice president of brand and communications, Steven Day, to change the company’s policy, which sees it pass on 90 per cent of the donations made to most charities and 100 per cent of the donation only to its own partner organisations.

Everything Everywhere was created last year after the two mobile giants merged, and is now the UK’s biggest communications company, with nearly 28 million customers. But while they are now operating closely together, an Orange representative said that Orange and T-Mobile are dealing with the issue of text donations separately.

A statement from Orange read: “We're aware of the fundraising potential of text donations and we know from our support of big charity campaigns that text donations are a brilliant way to engage with customers, while raising significant funds that can make a real difference.

“As of today Orange passes on 100 per cent of all text donations to its own charity partners including Comic Relief, Unicef, Sports Relief, Children in Need and the Royal British Legion’s Poppy Appeal, and 90 per cent to other UK charities. Meanwhile we are reviewing all areas of our text-to-donate service, including simplifying the procedure for charities."

Directory: Comic Relief | Institute of Fundraising | Royal British Legion | Unicef

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