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.