Open Fundraising to develop mobile giving for Child’s i
Howard Lake | 10 January 2013 | News
Mobile fundraising specialists Open Fundraising are developing a mobile giving strategy for Child’s i Foundation, the charity that helps abandoned babies in Uganda.
Although a new charity, Child’s i has built up a loyal group of supporters and donors using social media tools. So one of Open Fundraising’s first aims is to integrate mobile giving with the charity’s website and Facebook page.
The company will deploy Mobilise, its SMS-based regular giving platform, for the fundraising activity. The donation function on a web page looks like this:
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Note that this is a live link, so comes with some legal T&C: You can Stop at anytime by replying STOP. If for whatever reason you don’t want to give, reply SKIP to your monthly text and you will skip a payment.
New SMS donors receive this video by SMS when they sign up:
Kirsty Stephenson at Child’s i said: “As soon as I heard about Mobilise I thought it was a great fit for Child’s i Foundation. We really, really need regular donors now our project is fully established and £3 is a very manageable donation for most people – plus it is incredibly easy and quick to set up (none of the complex online forms and bank details required). Most importantly though, it is a very transparent way of giving – the donor is reminded every month before the donation is charged to their phone bill and given the opportunity to skip or stop”.
She added: “We’re also quite aware that people are on their smartphones all the time and we can share information and video updates with our donors about Child’s i Foundation through Mobilise. Although Facebook and Twitter serve us well in terms of delivering news and sharing views, we shouldn’t always expect our community to come to us – mobile is an alternative and incredibly effective medium to keep our donors up to date.”
Open Fundraising‘s Paul de Gregorio commented: “It’s really exciting to be working with Child’s i to bring mobile giving into their fundraising mix using the Mobilise system. Large charities will rely on telemarketing to recruit Mobilise donors, but regular giving by SMS is so much more than a telemarketing product! Mobile is social and we know that Child’s i fully grasp this and will use a variety of methods to recruit mobile supporters”.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.