Texting, social media gain as avenues for fundraising

In what the Pew Internet and American Life Project called the first in-depth study of mobile donors ”“ those who gave for Haiti relief by texting contributions ”“ many of those contributions appear to have been made on the spur of the moment after donors saw a television ad or were told about a campaign from a friend.

In addition, more than 40 percent of those donors then reached out to encourage an acquaintance to do the same, according to the Pew Research Center affiliate. And more than half of those that contributed said they went on to make donations in the wake of other disasters, including the Japan earthquake and tsunami, the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. communities ravaged by last year”™s freak spate of tornadoes.

Stamford-based AmeriCares and Westport-based Save the Children both relied on text donations to collect relief funds, with the nonprofit Mobile Giving Foundation managing the backend platform.

Save the Children has since made text-donation technology an integral part of its fundraising for key initiatives ”“ it is currently raising money for its “we can be heroes” drought-relief campaign for Africa, allowing people to donate $10 by texting SUPERHERO to 20222, and DC Entertainment pledging to match donations up to $1 million.

The Mobile Giving Foundation lists more than 50 charities for which it is running mobile giving campaigns. Not just any nonprofit can sign up for a mobile campaign organized by the Mobile Giving Foundation ”“ charities must have at least $500,000 in annual revenue, must be registered to solicit funds in all states that require it and must otherwise be in good standing with all applicable laws. The Mobile Giving Foundation lists additional preferred attributes regarding transparency and governance.

The foundation is based in the Seattle area, which Convio listed last month as the top city in the nation for online giving among organizations that use its own back-end engines ”“ in the Northeast, only Cambridge, Mass. cracked the top 10.

Convio lists social media and mobile giving as its top trend for this year ”“ but also includes donor fatigue as a worrisome trend.

For its part, Save the Children turned to a second smartphone channel in an attempt to combat donor fatigue for Haiti relief. The organization hired CharityCall to re-engage mobile donors long after the aftershocks in Haiti through a smartphone app, in an attempt to keep donations flowing as the country rebuilds. People can donate any amount by going to the HelpHaiti.mobi website on their mobile phone.

CharityCall charges its nonprofit clients a $225 set-up fee, a $99 monthly subscription fee and a 5 percent transaction fee on all donations processed to cover costs, with donations charged to PayPal. The company allows charities to ping supporters through news or Twitter feeds as well.

Perhaps surprisingly, just one in five surveyed in Pew”™s “Real Time Charitable Giving” report said they took action after being prompted by a social media channel such as Facebook or Twitter. And just 10 percent of those surveyed said email played a factor in the decision to make a donation.

Plenty of room for growth in the mobile text market, of course ”“ according to Pew, less than 10 percent of American adults have made a charitable contribution from a mobile phone, despite nearly two-thirds of adults owning one.