# SMS giving – an interesting example from Central Europe

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2007/10/30/sms-giving-interesting-example-central-europe/
- Published: 2007-10-30T11:34:28+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

Czechs love mobile phones – our country has 10 million inhabitants that own more
than 13 million active SIM cards. Last year they sent altogether 6 billion standard
SMS so it is no surprise that SMS giving became very popular way to contribute to
charity as people are used to send SMS frequently. 3 years ago Czech Donors Forum
convinced all mobile operators on the Czech market to join common project and make
together SMS giving as easy as possible. DMS (Donor Message Service) system they
created is simple and transparent. The most important part is an agreement on unified
and easy to remember phone number (87777) and keywords that work in all mobile phone
networks. There is also a unified price of one SMS: 30 CZK (appr.1 EUR) – NGO receives
27 crowns and the rest covers administration costs of the system. If NGO wants to
participate it submits proposal to DMS Council and after approval receives its unique“
DMS keyword” (e.g. DMS UNICEF) and can start to collect donations. Their case for
support and number of SMS received is published on webpage ([www.darcovskasms.cz](http://www.darcovskasms.cz))
so people can check what’s going on with their donation.

 

Since the beginning in 2004 more than 120 NGOs have participated and people sent
them almost 6 million SMS. It works evidently very well for humanitarian causes 
or fundraising campaigns with huge media coverage. For example, after the 2004 Tsunami
700,000 SMS were sent within two weeks. Or Help the Children raised nearly 400,000
SMS around their Easter TV show this year. Other, especially smaller and less known
charities obtain low order numbers (few hundreds or thousands per year). It is obvious
that presence in the mass media is the most important part of success of the campaign.

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Unfortunately it is anonymous giving. If someone contributes (s)he gets only standard
thank you message. NGOs don’t receive the phone number of their donor so that they
have no chance to get in contact with them. So DMS is a big progress as it was almost
impossible to use SMS for fundraising here before, but there is still a lot of space
for improvement as it has definitely potential to be more than “just” the advanced
public collection.

 

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