Mobile Giving Update
In an interview with MobileActive, Jim Manis, who is the CEO of the Mobile Giving Foundation and a former wireless executive, anticipated that in the next six months the Mobile Giving Foundation will have agreements with all carriers, waiving fees for approved nonprofit organizations and campaigns. The Mobile Giving Foundation already has application guidelines on its site, even though agreements are not all in place yet.
The Mobile Giving Foundation is positioning itself to be the approval and payment processor for nonprofits in the U.S., with an anticipated April 1 public launch.
Here’s how it will work:
* A nonprofit applies to the Mobile Giving Foundation.
* Carriers waive all fees for premium SMS donations for the approved nonprofit campaign through the Mobile Giving Foundation.
* The nonprofit hires a vendor for campaign execution (the fulfillment vendor for the United Way was Mobile Accord with VeriSign as the mobile delivery service).
* The Mobile Giving Foundation takes a 10 percent cut of text donations, anticipated to be reduced to 5 percent if the volume of campaigns increases. Payments are processed within 60 days post-billing, at which point the nonprofit receives a check.
Jim Manis says: “We are trying to change the game for nonprofits. We want nonprofits to have access to new demographics, so rather than look for that one person who can write a $10,000 check, an organization can tap into a younger demographic of 10,000 people who text in a $10 contribution.”
The Mobile Giving Foundation now is courting some of the largest nonprofits in the country for additional fundraising campaigns in this initial charter phase.
So how did the United Way campaign do? In a call with Jeff Slobotski and Michael Schreiber, manager of marketing and sales of volunteer technologies and chief executive officer, respectively, of the United eWay, which provides technology including mobile solutions to the national and local United Way groups, we learned that the 10-second ad that ran during the Super Bowl on air and in the stadium generated $10,000 in donations via text.
