Mobile Giving: The Next Revolution

The ease and convenience of using mobile technology — combined with the extraordinary communications and networking potential of social media — will enable small nonprofits to engage potential donors and grow their revenues at a pace never before experienced.

Charity: water is a model for such engagement. The organization enables supporters to download Web banners and create individual fundraising campaigns and other activities. By hosting an event in their homes, the charity’s supporters — armed with mobile technology — could raise several thousands of dollars from a few credit card swipes and further its brand with new ambassadors devoted to the cause of bringing clean water to poor communities. Any “Doubting Thomases” to my assertions on the new revolution?

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project this month released a study of those who donated toward Haiti relief after the earthquake. Its findings reinforce my belief that those using mobile devices to give to charitable causes are more tech-savvy than the American population overall. They are more likely to:

• Own an e-reader (24 percent as compared to 9 percent of all adults) and a tablet computer (23 percent as compared to 10 percent);
• Use Twitter (23 percent as compared with 12 percent of all online adults) and engage with social-networking sites (83 percent as compared 64 percent);
• Use their phones for activities such as accessing the Internet (74 percent as compared to just 44 percent of all adult cell owners).

Mobile givers also typically are younger, and like the emerging demographics of American society, they are more racially and ethnically diverse when compared with those who contribute through more traditional means, such as writing checks.

In addition, Blackbaud, the technology consulting firm, recently released its “State of the Nonprofit Industry 2012” report with data, issues and trends among charitable organizations in several nations. It noted that among the agencies participating in the study, “the use of mobile technologies in fundraising and marketing will experience explosive growth, in most cases more than doubling in the next 12 months.”