You’ve been provided some facts and general information about mobile giving. I’ve learned a lot through this process and want to hear your thoughts and experiences in the mobile giving space. Below are a few different theories and philosophies regarding some of the benefits and specifics of mobile giving.

Instantly Viral
Cell phones and smart phones are all over the world and have saturated America. People carry their mobile phones with them almost all of the time. As nonprofits try and find creative ways to reach out to their constituencies, text messaging is a great way to get a personal message out. Providing donors with instant information about the needs of your organization improves the urgency of your message. As we’ve seen through fundraising with Haiti, the mobile platform has an incredible ability to respond to an urgent need in a short period of time.

Emerging Industry
Katya from the Nonprofit Marketing Blog wrote about mobile giving in a recent post.

“Most of us don’t have optimized websites or email outreach. Nail the basics. Then think mobile.”

In the mind of many nonprofits, mobile giving is an emerging industry. The technology has been around for several years and through Haiti it has increased in popularity. If you are struggling to communicate with your donors through traditional channels, get those mastered first. Make sure your organization has an effective website before running a mobile campaign. One of the great values in mobile giving is the ability to point people to your website through an embedded link.

Scalability
Mobile giving is successful when you can effectively communicate with a large group of donors and when you have access to media channels. If you have a really small donor pool you may not be able to raise enough of a reach to justify the associated costs. Talk with the mobile giving business you’re considering working with and get a feel from them if they feel like your nonprofit is right for a mobile campaign.

Capturing Donor Information
In addition to donations, date, and time of the gift, and in many cases the cell phone number. However you can only text to this number you are not allowed to call it. Acknowledging this group of donors happens through follow up texts. Through follow-up texts and embedded links in your text message you can ask donors to fill out information such as an email or mailing address on your website.

I’d like to hear back from you one what your experience with mobile giving was like. If you were successful or unsuccessful, please leave a comment and tell us about it. I’d also like to hear from those of you that have not yet used mobile giving. What is preventing you from trying it out? What concerns do you have?

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Here are a few research studies on the adoption of mobile giving in the nonprofit community.

What questions do you have about mobile giving? There will be a handful of experts regularly reading your comments that can help clarify and explain mobile giving beyond the information I’ve provided. Please leave a comment below with your thoughts about mobile giving. If your nonprofit has used mobile giving let us know who you worked with and what that experience was like.

Related posts:

  1. How Does Mobile Giving Work?
  2. Text to Give Pricing & Costs
  3. Building Community Online
  4. What Motivates Giving?