Nearly 90% of a text donation now reaches charities
Howard Lake | 24 May 2010 | News
On average 91% of a £5.00 text donation given through any major mobile operator now reaches the recipient charity, according to figures published today by the Text Donation Campaign Group, supported by the Charities Aid Foundation, the Institute of Fundraising and Vir2.
Over the past two years the group has worked with the mobile phone industry to raise awareness of the fundraising potential of text donations and made the case for lower charges.
Although some big campaigns such as Comic Relief have secured the waving of charges by mobile phone companies, and some of the companies waive charges for selected carities, it has been harder for other charities to gain access to these higher rates. Nevertheless, O2 lowered their charges for all charities last year, Vodafone followed in February this year and most recently Virgin Media and Orange have made changes to pass on more of the donation.
Joe Saxton who started the campaign to get mobile phone companies to reduce their charges said: “The mobile phone companies and the industry body, the Mobile Data Association have listened and made significant changes. VAT on text donations has been waived, special charity short codes have been introduced and all of the mobile phone companies have lowered their charges.
“Later this year we will carry out research amongst donors to see what they think of these new rates. I hope that one day we will see a fixed fee for all donations. This would make it easier for donors to understand how much of their donation reaches the charity and build confidence in giving by text.”
Roger Craven, Director of Vir2 Ltd, the specialist provider of mobile fundraising solutions, said: “Now that more money is getting through more charities are approaching us about running text fundraising campaigns. We have charity clients who are raising as much in one, or two days as all our clients put together used to raise in a whole month. It’s spontaneous and easy and reaches a new younger audience.”
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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.