A year ago this month the world witnessed a massive earthquake shook Haiti, and the citizens of the world, to their core. The extent of the damage following the disaster on January 12, 2010, quickly reached cataclysmic proportions. An estimated three million people were affected by the quake. The Haitian government also reported 230 thousand people died, 300 thousand were injured and 1 million were made homeless.
The earthquake also triggered a global response and a mobile awakening, moving mobile giving — using our mobile phones to make donations to causes such as earthquake relief — to the top of our minds and to the fore of the mobile industry agenda.
Indeed, 2010 was a pivotal year in our understanding that mobility is not only about communications. It is about empowerment. Leveraging mobile allows non-profits to reach out to people, thus enabling us all to do good at the moment of inspiration.
One organization that understands how mobile has changed cause giving is The Mobile Giving Foundation (MGF). The organization — headquartered in Bellevue, Washington — was founded by veterans of the wireless industry who wanted to harness the immense power of wireless communications to empower non-profit organizations. The aim: to provide people a single Mobile Giving Channel over which they could receive and respond to appeals from worthy causes.
To this end MGF has tackled a laundry list of issues to take the complexity out of fundraising. (This includes developing and managing carrier standards for participation; ensuring compliance with all laws and regulations concerning charitable giving; certifying the participation of non-profit organizations and their campaigns; managing message delivery and billing solutions across all carriers; and acting as a billing settlement and records clearinghouse between carriers and participating charities.)
The result: non profits can leverage the power and reach of mobile to cultivate a new base of givers and – more importantly – create permissive donor interaction. Giving to a cause isn’t a one-off action; it’s become an ongoing conversation.
Jim Manis, The Mobile Giving Foundation
I caught up with Jim Manis, MGF founder and CEO, to talk about the remarkable response to mobile giving campaigns and the reasons why 2011 will be a year of even more activity and innovation.
While clearly proud of the results and acceleration of giving using mobile phones in 2010, Jim is clear on the opportunities and challenges ahead.
For one, people want to transparency. As Jim put it: “With mobile, it’s personal, and when it’s personal, privacy matters to consumers – to causes – and to the celebrities who support those causes. More and more, we’re seeing that those who give through their mobile phones or in any way want to know where their time and money are going, and to know that their gifts are reaching people who are in the most need.”
Fortunately, mobile is a platform that allows charities to address people’s concerns directly. As Jim points out: “Mobile is the most interactive channel for donor engagement and serves as an effective platform for charities to provide the transparency donor’s demand.”
Specifically, the MGF’s business model entails a 100-percent pass through rate for donations. This means all donations go directly to qualified non-profit organizations from consumers (collected by their mobile service providers and paid through the MGF) to the causes bringing support and services to people impacted by natural disasters (like the Haiti earthquake). But it doesn’t stop there. Causes are also leveraging mobile to help people affected by cancer, domestic violence and the economic downturn.
“It’s not easy to build and run a platform, like ours, which makes it possible for consumers to easily give, and for causes to securely receive, using mobile devices, in a manner defined by trust and integrity,” Jim notes. Fortunately, the MGF has been able to build and scale these connections, by the millions, based on standards and defined best practices. “But I know we will need to continually develop and innovate in order to be ready for the next natural or man-made disaster like the Haitian earthquake or the Gulf Oil Spill.”
Mobile giving initiatives grow
2010 was an eventful year for the MGF. “We learned that when you attempt to enable philanthropy for the masses, you need to ensure costs are reasonable, and that all the key participants in the ecosystem have transparent and sustainable economics.” To create the conditions — and the ecosystem — to make this possible the MGF successfully negotiated with major US and Canadian-based mobile operators to create a true pass through of funds collected with no transactions charges from the operators.
By way of background, the MGF’s funding comes from corporate sponsorships and platform access charges for accredited Applications Services Providers (ASP’s) who offer non-profits the management and marketing capability to raise money and manage donors acquired through mobile campaigns.
As Jim sees it: “The ASP’s are key because they understand both worlds –business and philanthropy – and are able to work with the non-profits while also being able to tackle the logistics of how mobile giving works, using software, billing systems and user-interfaces.”
Another key player in the business ecosystem is the carrier. “The carriers are also key and fundamental to what we do, and generous to provide a means to easily bill and collect donations using the ubiquity of text messaging and the convenience of carrier billing,” Jim notes. “Their support represents a phenomenal but silent contribution to each community where their individual customers live.”
To date over 1,000 causes now use the MGF to support their mobile giving initiatives, raising millions in resources by cultivating new donors (and giving their existing base an easy, secure way to give).
Multimedia meets mobile giving
So what’s ahead for mobile giving in 2011?
Jim shared his five top trends.
1. Innovation will transpire at a rapid pace. As general awareness increases and the number of smart phones grows, so will creativity including much richer mobile applications leveraging not just SMS (text-to-give), but multi-media services and mobile Web, including video.
2. Nonprofit ROI will continue to improve. Business models and expanded donation price points will rapidly evolve to bring more flexibility and control to nonprofits.
3. “Integrity and Trust” for donor and charity alike will continue to be the key words for mobile giving in 2011, as consumers will wish to know where their money is actually going. Causes will also want to know where their money is coming from to avoid any hint of impropriety.
4. Consumer control and a verifiable donations platform are critical. End-to-end systems, like that provided by the MGF, will be even more important to ensure visibility and transparency to the donation collected and subsequently paid out. And this requirement will grow as mobile giving options expand.
5. Impulse giving, best defined by mobile, produces a tangible and positive psychological effect. All those who participate in mobile giving will continue to realize the power of emotional conversion – and seek to further evolve the powerful combination of cause, community, celebrity and content – to create viral and sustainable change.
Overall, 2010 was a huge year for mobile giving. Jim reports that “almost 6 million people donated to a wide range of charities using their mobile devices.” How might this develop in 2011? “We’ll see an expansion from the $5-10 price point per donation to $20-25 and more by mid-year,” Jim says.
But mobile giving will increase in more than dollar amounts. “We’ll witness a surge in highly creative, emotional content that individuals will relate to – not just to donate money – but to give their time as volunteers. We’ll also see tremendous creativity in development of multi-media content that will move people to donate through their mobile devices after, for example, they watch an inspiring mobile video by one of their favorite athletes or celebrities.”
Already results from live events speak for the power of mobile combined with other media. Jim has seen real-time response rates as high as 68 percent of the audience. “It’s in the call-to action, as well as the cause itself.”
Indeed, “calling” has taken on new meaning in the world of mobile giving, which is why we have chosen to kick off our series on mobile cause giving innovation and innovators with the MGF. Each week I will profile a different company/individual using mobile for good here MSearchGroove, so please feel free to reach out to me to share your thoughts and comments — or suggest a candidate for the series.
Disclaimer: MSG is aligned with the mission and goals of The Mobile Movement, a coalition committed to bringing mobile capabilities to non-profits in order that they may reach millions more people in need by leveraging mobile devices, networks and innovative applications they will create in partnership with social entrepreneurs. Peggy Anne Salz sits on the Advisory Board.