Is There an App for Us?

How are nonprofits going to get a bigger piece of the always-on/in-your-pocket/smartphone/Internet of things that is eating the world?

Our donors, clients, funders and friends are connected practically 24/7 with Facebook and FaceTime, Tinder and Twitter, Fitbit and FuelBand. They spend 86 percent of their mobile time on apps, only 14 percent on the mobile Web. On their smartphones, they play games 32 percent of the time and on Facebook 17 percent, but surf the mobile Web just 15 percent of the time.

But how many nonprofits are playing in the app space? How many have created apps that are not just downloaded but actually used regularly? Not very many ... and it's not easy!

Like so many things in fundraising, it's all about relationships. What kind of relationship do you want with your supporters, and more important, what kind of relationship do they want with you? Can an app make it easier?

Successful apps provide value for users over time. They are tools you want to use — if not many times every day (Facebook, Google Maps, MapMyRun), then at least regularly (United Airlines, Hotels Tonight, Tinder). When I asked a group of guys smoking cigars on a street corner to recommend a good taco stand, they thought I was a dope: "Don't you have Yelp?"

Some organizations have started to make apps work. PETA has apps that let you take advocacy actions (and earn points for Peta2 prizes) and a HappyCow vegetarian restaurant finder. The advocacy apps generate an outsize portion of PETA's actions. World Wildlife Fund's gorgeous animal app for iPad has been been downloaded more than 1 million times.

A few years ago, a British organization that helps homeless youths created a Tamagotchi-like app that required you to take care of a begging, drug-addicted homeless kid for three days. It caught a wave of publicity for the charity (and the ad agency that produced the app) but expired after the three-day experience (and generated very few donations). The Salvation Army has a Red Kettle app for Christmas fundraising, and Relay for Life and other events have nice apps.

Human Rights Campaign has a shopping guide for iPhone and Android that lets you check out the homosexual-friendly policies of hotels, restaurant chains, stores, etc. A lot of people, including me, have downloaded it, but it's hard to imagine they use it too often.

Just imagine, it's 2020. Your donor commits 5 cents for every mile she walks or runs thanks to the workout tracker embedded in her arm. She checks her daily cancer-monitoring app, sees a warning sign and taps to support the cancer researchers who could save her life. Her empathy neurons crackle when she sees a video of street kids in Indonesia, and she blinks twice to transfer $50 to Amnesty International.

Got an idea for an app that could connect a charity or nonprofit with its supporters and beneficiaries in an ongoing way, one that could become part of their daily or at least weekly lives? Send it to me and I'll publish the best ideas (and split the royalties with you).