Fundraising organizations have been turning to text messaging as a
way to raise money. A text messaging campaign raised over $30 million
for the people of Haiti in the wake of the tragic earthquake that
devastated the small island nation on January 12, 2010.
The immediacy of text messaging and the convenience of typing in a
short code on your mobile device, instead of a complete phone number,
has been an effective way for charities to raise money. It is estimated
that 1 in 3 people in the United States alone will own a cell phone by
2012 and as the age of Internet children mature – children born after
the advent of the Internet – text messaging and mobile devices will
become as ubiquitous as televisions.
Convenience comes at a cost. A fundraising organization
accepts donations by partnering with an intermediary like mGive, a
wireless application service provider. mGive provides a software
application that connects the fundraiser with major cell phone
carriers. The software creates a code, donors type in the code on a
cell phone, wait for a response to confirm, ‘yes’ and the donation is
made. Each donation is billed to the donor’s monthly cell phone bill.
100% of the donation is passed to the fundraising effort. But
software licensing fees can cost the charity $400 to $1500 a month plus a
small transaction fee for each donation. These charges add up quickly.
Texting your donation is a quick and easy way to pledge your support
for a needy cause. But that’s where the quick and easy
stops. Donations can take 30-90 days to process. In the wake of a
disaster, like the earthquake in Haiti, the delay can cost lives because
assistance is needed immediately.
Efficient and cost effective ways of supporting your favorite cause
through fundraisers have been developing to capitalize on the growth of
the Internet. Online fundraising platforms, like Piryx have been
created to provide charities with a way to raise money online fast and
effectively. A fundraiser can be created in just minutes by signing up
for free.
Online fundraisers can be accessed by donors on a myriad of devices
including laptops, mobile phones and tablets. The donations are made
immediately like a text donation by clicking a donate button on a
webpage.
Unlike texting, online fundraising platforms are free to setup, free
to manage and provide the charity with tools to collect donations in a
variety of ways. And the charity receives the donation within a maximum
10 days.
Innovations in technology continue to provide community fundraising organizations
with the power to reach their donors in newer and more efficient
ways. The most successful ones carry out due diligence to determine
which are the most efficient and cost effective so they can concentrate
on the most important part of their work: supporting the cause.
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