2008 was an amazing roller-coaster of a year on so many levels, filled with soaring highs and abysmal lows. A couple of the highlights: The Phillies won the World Series — hey, we’re in Philadelphia; it was a big deal (but whether it made the Eagles’ smashed Super Bowl dreams any less painful is debatable); and, oh yeah, history was made in the political arena when the American people gave Barack Obama the presidency.
In 1997, online donations in the United States totaled a mere $300,000. In 2007, online donations were pinpointed at $10.44 billion reflecting exponential growth in overall giving and technology, according to a Harvard University study on innovation in Social Enterprise.
(Editor’s Note: Mobile maven Katrin Verclas let us know last week that there have been some pretty positive developments on the mobile-giving scene since she last wrote about it for Giving 2.0 sister e-letter the FS Advisor in February. Here’s her latest update, in case you missed it at MobileActive.org.) Mobile donations to nonprofits have been stymied in the United States — hampered by the high fees charged for text message gifts that are then billed to a mobile-phone customer. When a donor gives to a nonprofit via text, more than half of the contribution goes to the telephone carrier, leaving less than 50
