The Best Use of Text Messaging Ever

December 6, 2006

Driving home today I was listening to a talk radio station and they were doing an interview with someone from Centraide, a charity (affiliated with The United Way) that collects money for dozens of organizations in the Montreal/Quebec area. Centraide does a lot of good around here.

The interview was about a very cool, new way to donate money: by text message.

Centraide just launched the program today. You can donate $1, $2 or $5 via text message. Text the word give to the number 191919. You get a quick text message back that asks you to input the dollar amount. Send that back and you’re done; your next phone bill will show the charge.

The Centraide representative said it was an experiment in getting younger people to donate money. The amounts are very small and young people are heavily into text messaging. If Centraide gets the word out enough, they hope it will result in a positive return.

To me this is a an awesome example of how technology helps.

I’m not really into text messaging (maybe I’m a generation too old to really get it), but every single charity should use this. It’s almost impossible to remember phone numbers or website addresses while listening to the radio (or watching TV). And even if you do remember, I bet most people think to themselves, “I should donate to that cause…” and then it slips their mind later.

Text messaging can make the process much faster. It removes a barrier to donating, a barrier to making a decision. Make it easy enough for people and they will participate.

In a couple of minutes I donated my $5. I may do it again just cause it’s so fun. There’s something gratifying for the person sending the donation; your cellphone dings and a message comes up immediately, “Thank you for the donation.” Instant gratification is very cool.

I’d love to know how much it cost Centraide to setup the program. They’re a big charity; so I wonder if smaller charities could afford to implement text messaging donations. If it’s too expensive, someone should make it less expensive for charities to benefit from.

Quick note: A bit of digging on Google brought up some interesting resources:

  • Increasing Your SMS Donation Revenue? is a good article covering some details about setting up text messaging donation systems. It’s a good way to get informed on the subject.
  • Mobile Accord offers a service to non-profits called mGive for taking donations via text message. (No indication of what it costs.)

Interestingly, it seems like a lot of the information / links I found quickly were from the U.K.

This is a subject I’m going to explore more. You have to love the idea that technology is not just there for fun and entertainment, but it can have a higher purpose. It can make a difference. It’s not just about watching whacky videos and downloading illegal music.

Good luck Centraide! I hope the campaign is a huge success!

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Comments
  • I have always known that there is more use to mobile phones than sending text and making calls. This solution actually makes it easy for people to support their charity organisation. I have been involved in developing mobile solutions in the past and I can say that we have not seen anything yet.

    One of the Nigerian mobile phone operators has a facility that allows people to pay for transaction from the mobile phones. Everything is embedded on the SIM and it has been making the way transactions are being conducted in the country easier. More is set to come. We only need to keep positioning ourselves.
  • Ben,

    The problem with this is that the carriers take 50% of the billed amount. It's possible that specific deals were made with the charity, but they normally take half for themselves.

    As a contributor, I would be uncomfortable making a donation where anything more than 7% goes to the charity for costs and admin fees. How would you feel knowing that out of the $5 you donated, only $2.50 got to the charity?

    At Mobivity, we offer the ability for our customers to sell content the same way. The main roadblock is that the content producer is only getting about 35% of what the customer is paying. The largest chunk is taken by Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, Cingular and the other carriers.
  • Greg,

    I had read about the 50% split with the carriers. In the article I linked to in the post they make mention of some companies working with governments, regulators, carriers, etc. to lower that cost.

    I have to believe that bigger charities can negotiate better rates with the carriers, but I'd love to hear from Centraide/The United Way on that front.

    And, I think the carriers HAVE to give charities a break on this sort of thing; it just makes sense for everyone involved.

    Thanks for the input Greg.
  • I worked at United Way as Director of IS back in the early 90's. I remember back then that they would not exceed 15% total cost. The goal was to pass through a minimum of 85% of donations. I'm sure they worked out some arrangement.

    Thanks for blogging about this. It's such a great technology and we need to get the word out. There are so many great uses for it.
  • 15% is still a bit high for the carriers to piggyback. They should do it for cost (or lose money on it) and promote the living heck out of it. The carriers would look like darlings, and they could use the positive messaging.

    Who do I have to talk to at Fido, Rogers and Telus to get some action around here? *grin*

    Thanks again Greg...great insight!
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