Table of Contents
Introduction
Hi all, after a summer hiatus, I’m back! Mobile giving is all-the-rage these days, especially after natural disasters. We’ve all seen advertisements that say “Text HAITI to 90999” in order to donate $5 to the Red Cross. (That’s a real number.) You might be wondering how you can leverage this concept for your own crisis line or organization.
How Mobile Giving Works
Mobile giving, or donate-by-phone is an easier way to engage your donors. They simply text an SMS short-code from their cell phones, and a pre-determined amount of money is added to their bill. It’s a snap for you and individuals who, in order to donate previously, would have had to sign up with organizations like CanadaHelps, PayPal, or deal with the administrative burden of trying to give you cash or cheques directly.
Advantages
As already stated, mobile giving is easy. Most donors have SMS-capable cell phones and can take the 10 seconds to fire off a text message. In Canada, a mobile giving campaign can be set up that, after the payment of flat service fees, runs automatically. 100% of the money raised is given to your organization.
Mobile giving fundraising messaging is effortless. It can be distributed across social media like Facebook or Twitter, sent in a fundraising letter, or even included on a digital sign. This makes it ideal for almost any time of year, and any type of fundraising.
Disadvantages
There are some disadvantages to mobile giving: namely, if your intended audience does not use a cell phone or does not use SMS texting, they may be more apprehensive. This means that organizations that traditionally solicit funds from an older adult or elderly clientele may prefer fundraising letters or other tangible ways of donating.
Secondly, you have less information provided to you by your fundraising clients. For example, in the simplest mobile giving campaign, you have only the individual’s phone number. This means that giving tax receipts or following up on fundraising is more difficult.
Implementing Mobile Giving At Your Crisis Line
This guide is based on my experience implementing mobile giving at Distress Centre Durham. We elected to run a short, 3-month campaign starting on World Suicide Prevention Day (September 9, 2017). In Canada, all Mobile Giving is managed by the Mobile Giving Foundation (MGF) of Canada, a project of the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA).
The Mobile Giving Foundation has agreements with each of the major telecoms in Canada so that 100% of the money donated is given to the charities.
After going to the Mobile Giving Foundation website (http://mobilegiving.ca), we navigated to the “For Registered Charities” section of the website. There, we see the MGF Standards of Participation. These requirements which include being a registered charity, being in good standing with the CRA, operating for more than one year, and having a donor privacy policy, are required to ensure that the MGF only runs campaigns with reputable charities.
There is a short questionnaire in order to receive approval by the MGF to submit a more comprehensive campaign application. After submitting the campaign application, we were emailed the application.
In addition to the organizational information, we also had a few choices to make:
- Donation amount
- Which short-code
- Length of campaign
- Use of widgets
- Use of MGF built-in technology or an ASP
These will be explored below.
Donation Amount
We had the choice of $5, $10, or $25 per text. We decided to go with $10 as that is a small enough that most individuals would be willing to make that donation without much thought, but large enough that a short campaign would still be effective. You can run multiple campaigns with different dollar amounts.
For example, you could have donors text SPRITE 5 to donate $5 or SPRITE 10 to have them donate $10. This is achieved through the use of keywords and sub-keywords.
Choosing a Short-Code
We had the choice of 5 short-codes to choose from. We decided to go with 41010, each of the short-codes is a similar 5 digit number (e.g. 21212 or 101010). In a campaign like this, your short-code should be memorable and not easily confused with another organization, if there are others fundraising in the same geographical area.
Choosing a Campaign Length
The MGF allows you to choose a 3-month, 6-month, or 12-month campaign. The service fees (which includes a $350 application fee and then small additional monthly fees for each additional keyword/sub-keyword or widget you use) will be based on the length of your campaign. Many of the add-ons are free with a 12-month campaign which makes this very economical.
Using Widgets
Widgets are follow-ups that you may add to your campaign after the individual texts in to donate. For instance, you might text them back with a Thank You that directs them to a contact page, or to another page on your website. Another widget allows your donors to opt-in to receiving up to 3 follow-up messages.
For the Distress Centre Durham campaign we elected not to use any widgets, preferring to keep the campaign simple.
Using MGF Technology or an Application Service Provider (ASP)
An ASP or Application Service Provider is an organization that can help you manage your campaign. They provide additional tools that allow you to track or manage your campaign more easily, for a fee. Distress Centre Durham elected not to use any ASP when running our first campaign as we wanted to see what was possible with the MGF technology. It turns out their built-in features are more than enough for our needs.
Choosing Keywords and Sub Keywords
A Keyword is the word that an organization texts to donate to you. For example, someone could text SPRITE to 21212 to donate $5 to your fundraising campaign. You might decide that if they text PEPSI to 21212 that they will donate $10, and you could establish these as two separate keywords for your 12-month campaign.
A sub keyword is an additional word that is added onto your keyword in order for you to more granularly manage fundraising. For example, while Distress Centre Durham decided on “SUPPORT” as our keyword, we added the sub keyword DURHAM for fundraising we ran within the Region. Since we have other Online Text and Chat (ONTX) community partners participating, they each have their own sub keyword for their area.
Cost of Campaign
The cost of a mobile campaign is minimal. After your questionnaire is approved, the MGF sends you a price list. Most of the add-ons are free when running a 12-month campaign, with the largest fee simply being the $350 application fee. This makes mobile giving an ideal fundraising campaign for even a very small charity.
I would recommend for a 12 month campaign using one keyword, that you set aside $1,000 for the application fee, and other administrative costs (including getting information like audited financial statements or others available) and paying for advertising to promote your campaign.
Conclusion
Did I miss anything? Do you have any other questions? Please let me know. If you’d like to support Canada’s Online Text and Chat (ONTX) Program or Distress Centre Durham you may text SUPPORT DURHAM to 41010.