Mobile

If your organization’s messages aren’t getting read, your constituents aren’t engaging. And if they aren’t engaging, they probably aren’t donating. Our quick check of nonprofit emails in our inboxes suggests that the vast majority are not mobile-friendly.

Last month in her Navigating Off the Napkin blog for FundRaising Success, data maven Angie Moore confessed to being completely confused by QR (quick response) codes. Moore … and a lot of other people, if we’re being honest. Following are some of the comments the post attracted.

Hear about the data and see how today’s technology makes going mobile easy, secure and very good for your bottom line.

A new app for streaming music service Spotify wants people to donate to charity in return for getting their favorite songs played during friends’ parties. The Guilty Pledgers app requires party hosts to sign in using Facebook, then open up a party playlist. Friends can then pledge to any of a range of charities — more than 13,000 available on the JustGiving website — in return for adding tracks of their choice to the playlist. It’s the first fundraising app to be launched on Spotify.

This year the Academy Awards featured a tribute to the classic and beloved film "The Wizard of Oz," in honor of the movie’s 75th anniversary. We think there is something everyone can learn from Oz … even about mobile fundraising! Here are a few famous lines from the classic movie and how we think you can apply them to your mobile program.

Ted Hart speaks with Philip King, vice president of mobile and business development at Sheads & Associates, a Cornerstone Co., about mobile fundraising on his Nonprofit Coach radio show.

I know I'm supposed to think QR codes are great, but really I am just confused about them.

Time spent chasing promises to give online is better spent thanking actual donors.

With 51 percent of email now opened on a tablet or smartphone, nonprofits should redesign their e-newsletters as soon as possible. Long-standing e-newsletter design best practices such as a two- or three-column-fixed layout, 12-point font size and text-based links only are officially 51 percent less effective. Unless your nonprofit embraces responsive design or mobile-first design aesthetics, your stories and calls to action will go unread and untapped. If email is integral to your communications and fundraising strategy, redesigning your e-newsletter to make it mobile-compatible should be at the top of your to-do list.

Jan. 28, Michael Sabat, VP of business development at Mobile Commons, co-hosted a webinar with Dawn Bickett from Greenpeace USA and Lawrence Grodeska from Change.org. The webinar covered how nonprofits can use SMS campaigns to engage their supporters with mobile.

Watch the video below for mobile usage statistics, best practices for integrating mobile into campaigns, and examples of past and ongoing campaigns from Greenpeace USA and other large nonprofit organizations.