Mobile

While text-to-give was an early, high-profile mobile-marketing success story, recent developments and the availability of other potentially more effective strategies could result in a shrinking role going forward. Last fall, the major wireless carriers stopped supporting premium SMS, but not text-to-give programs for nonprofits and political campaigns. However, the upheaval and uncertainty caused by the news is just one reason nonprofits could begin looking beyond text-to-give.

At Artez Interactive, we wanted to know more about the impact of mobile devices on peer-to-peer, or “crowd-sourced,” fundraising campaigns. When individuals are motivated to ask their friends and social networks to donate to a cause, are those supporters using smartphones and tablets to help them fundraise? Similarly, are donors in peer-driven events giving through mobile-Web-enabled devices?

In this episode of Social Good, Tom Watson, president of CauseWired, a nonprofit consulting firm, and Kate Forristall, fund director at ArtsKC, a cultural group in Kansas City, Mo., discuss different types of mobile giving and explain how nonprofits can start raising money on smartphones and tablets without spending thousands of dollars to create apps.

Our donors cross media channel boundaries. They're really screwing up our neat, measurable, direct-response world. It's a pain, but it's something we must get used to and find ways of working with. One thing not to do is encourage donors to downgrade their involvement — or get lost entirely — by sending them to low-involvement channels. Here are two serious wrong turns that you shouldn't encourage donors to make: putting a QR code in direct mail and encouraging text-to-give on a website, e-mail or direct mail.

Can mobile bring supporters closer to local nonprofits and help them beat the out-of-state nonprofits that have muscled their way into their communities with brand and money? I think it can. The key is your proximity to people. It matters. Plan your mobile strategy accordingly. Focus on social media. Embrace mobile search. Use responsive design. Adopt two strategies — one for smartphones and one for tablets.

At Artez Interactive, we track fundraising activity for millions of visitors to charity and nonprofit donation pages every year. We’ve noticed that for most organizations, the peak time of day for online donations is between 9 a.m. – 11 a.m. Mobile Web usage actually ramps up after work or school! Your supporters are primarily using smartphones and tablets at home while watching TV, listening to music, reading e-mails or browsing social networks. We’ve discovered that the most popular time for mobile Web donations is between 8 p.m. – 10 p.m.

Winter is rapidly approaching, and you are probably busy finalizing your end-of-year giving plans. Have you considered using mobile as a way to tie it all together? The first thing many people think about when it comes to mobile is text donations.  Mobile can indeed be used to ask donors for contributions, but limiting mobile to that narrow role is like using the Internet just for e-mail. The Internet has many uses — and so does mobile.

The mobile Web is often discussed as a future trend that nonprofits have time to prepare for, but the reality is that by the end of 2014, the majority of your supporters and donors will be viewing your website, e-mail communications,  blogs and social-media content on smartphones and tablets. In truth, the mobile Web is already here. Going mobile will not be free and for many small nonprofits a costly upgrade, but to successfully communicate your mission and programs and fundraise online in coming years, it is a necessary investment.

Does it make sense to encourage people to text to give NOW when they're reading your message in a place with no signal?

At JustGiving, we’ve been monitoring the increasing power of mobile fundraising and its impact on social media since early 2012, when stats revealed huge growth in this area. There has been much excitement as we have now hit the inflection point of mobile internet users exceeding desktop users.

In this article, we share our latest insight and explore the trends and data that make social and mobile a non-negotiable part of any charity’s online fundraising strategy.