The article, Nonprofits go mobile to raise funds for Chile1, reports on how AmericCares, Catholic Relief Services, and Habitat for Humanity used mobile services to raise funds for and awareness of the earthquake in Chile. What I particularly liked in the article, was the point made by Anthony Risicato, CEO of Mobile Commons, that nonprofits must have “ongoing communications” with its donors and supports. Risicato also notes that the average donation made to the big nonprofits is far higher than the $10 given via mobile phones. Though an influx of hundreds or even thousands of $10 donations is a major benefit to nonprofits, a committed, regular-giving donor is a most valuable asset.
Turns out that it is not easy to find out just what is the average or median amount donated by an individual. However, the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University reports that the American Express Charitable Gift Survey conducted in the Fall of 2007 found that the median non-religious donation was $50. $138 is the average non-religious gift.2
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Reading Would You Check in to a Box of Tampax? For Charity?: CauseWorld App Gives Consumers Something Else to Do With Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt3 led me to categorize the venture as doing-good-while-doing-good-for-yourself.
Smart phones users load the free phone app CauseWorld developed by ShopKick. Then when they are out shopping they use the app to check in when physically inside an in-the-network store (grocery store, restaurant, etc.). A user can only check into the same store once a day.
The user earns credits (karmas) simply for checking in; no purchase is required. The user uses those credits to have a donation made to one of the participating Cause World nonprofits. The donations are funded by corporate sponsors of Cause World are Citigroup Inc. and Kraft Foods. Cause World tagline, “Sponsors donate money. You choose where it goes,” makes the concept pretty clear.
Below are the nonprofits benefiting from the app4. The number in parentheses next to each name denotes the number of karmas needed to have a donation made.
Carbon Fund (1)
Donors Choose (5)
Prevent Child Abuse America (5)
LiveStrong Foundation (5)
Americans for the Arts (5)
GENAustin (girls at risk) (5)
American Red Cross (10)
Children’s Safe Drinking Water (10)
Autism Speaks (10)
Global Giving (10)
BRAC USA (fighting poverty in Africa) (10)
Accion USA (10)
Feeding America (14)
American Humane (50)
Jane Goodall Institute (100)
American Forests (Global Releaf) (100)
Room to Read (100)
Live, Learn and Thrive (200)
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How much is a picture worth? Well, you’ll find the answer in VH1 to raise money for Operation Smile with mobile giving campaign.5
For VH1 and Operation Smile (which corrects cleft palates), a picture of a smile is worth a $1. To participate in the “Send a Smile” campaign, individuals send their photo by cell service short code or upload it to VH1smile.com, VH1 donates $1 for each photo up to $10,000 to Operation Smile. As of 3/23/10, 2,179 photos have been shared.
Individuals can also make a $5 donation to the charity via cell phone by texting the keyword SMILE to the short code 90999.
VH1 gets to promote the new show “Jessica Simpson’s The Price of Beauty.” Simpson has been involved with the charity since 2003.
After submitting the photo, a participant can go to VH1smile.com and to see how his/her photo became part of a photo mosaic. I found the mosaic to be pretty interesting. When I visited the site, the photo on the home page was from The Price of Beauty and it is of Jessica Simpson in Paris walking down a runway. In just a few seconds the photo transforms into a mosaic and you can roll over one of the mosaics and one of the uploaded smiles appears in side screen. There are also two sliding bars that allow you to zoom into or get more detail of the large photo mosaic.
If you are into celebrities, you can go to the “Celebrities” tab on the top navigation bar. Click on it and you get a drop down with a list of all the celebrities featured in the tiles. Click on a celebrity and you are taken to the photo which contains the celebrity’s mosaic and the celebrity photo shows up in side screen that features an individual photo.
Promoted on the site is a sweepstakes that will take the winner to New York to attend Operation Smile’s black-tie gala and to meet Jessica. Corporate “Friends of Smiles are provided with tiles on the bottom of the home page. These sponsors are: TripAdvisor, Vital Juice, Snapfish by Hewlett Packard, Pandora Internet Radio and Mintbox which invites members to private sales, exclusive events, designer previews, fashion shows, etc.
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For VH1 and Operation Smile (which corrects cleft palates), a picture of a smile is worth a $1. To participate in the “Send a Smile” campaign, individuals send their photo by cell service short code or upload it to VH1smile.com, VH1 donates $1 for each photo up to $10,000 to Operation Smile. As of 3/23/10, 2,179 photos have been shared.
Individuals can also make a $5 donation to the charity via cell phone by texting the keyword SMILE to the short code 90999.
VH1 gets to promote the new show “Jessica Simpson’s The Price of Beauty.” Simpson has been involved with the charity since 2003.
After submitting the photo, a participant can go to VH1smile.com and to see how his/her photo became part of a photo mosaic. I found the mosaic to be pretty interesting. When I visited the site, the photo on the home page was from The Price of Beauty and it is of Jessica Simpson in Paris walking down a runway. In just a few seconds the photo transforms into a mosaic and you can roll over one of the mosaics and one of the uploaded smiles appears in side screen. There are also two sliding bars that allow you to zoom into or get more detail of the large photo mosaic.
If you are into celebrities, you can go to the “Celebrities” tab on the top navigation bar. Click on it and you get a drop down with a list of all the celebrities featured in the tiles. Click on a celebrity and you are taken to the photo which contains the celebrity’s mosaic and the celebrity photo shows up in side screen that features an individual photo.
Promoted on the site is a sweepstakes that will take the winner to New York to attend Operation Smile’s black-tie gala and to meet Jessica. Corporate “Friends of Smiles are provided with tiles on the bottom of the home page. These sponsors are: TripAdvisor, Vital Juice, Snapfish by Hewlett Packard, Pandora Internet Radio and Mintbox which invites members to private sales, exclusive events, designer previews, fashion shows, etc.
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Though I cannot speak for anyone else, I usually feel a pang of guilt when I pass a homeless person on the sidewalk. Certainly I’m not going to take that person home. Nor do I feel comfortable giving them some cash because I doubt they will spend it on food. So almost always I redirect my gaze away from the person, quicken my pace, and walk by.
So I was intrigued when I read Pathways to Housing goes mobile to raise funds for homeless.6 Depending upon where they walk, strollers in downtown Manhattan are likely to come across a video projection of a homeless person. The walker can use his/her cell phone to perform the call to action and send a text message to get the person off the street. Using the phone sets a different video into motion; a door appears and the person walks through to a new home. Then the person receives a text message with instructions to make a $5 mobile phone donation. Sarkissian Mason developed the campaign. The campaign runs through March so I’m hoping that I will come across it.
However, I was surprised that when I went to the Pathways to Housing website there was no mention of the video projection campaign. Seems to me that an opportunity was lost to link the street campaign with the website. But I’m not being critical of the site which is very impressive. The home page is very graphically appealing and the invitation to “See Our Stories” is powerful. Clicking on the “Our Model: Pathways Housing First” link takes you to an ingenious animation how Pathways cost efficiently address the issue of homelessness for people with psychiatric disabilities. On this same page is a link to a documentary. Kudos to Pathways.
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So I was intrigued when I read Pathways to Housing goes mobile to raise funds for homeless.6 Depending upon where they walk, strollers in downtown Manhattan are likely to come across a video projection of a homeless person. The walker can use his/her cell phone to perform the call to action and send a text message to get the person off the street. Using the phone sets a different video into motion; a door appears and the person walks through to a new home. Then the person receives a text message with instructions to make a $5 mobile phone donation. Sarkissian Mason developed the campaign. The campaign runs through March so I’m hoping that I will come across it.
However, I was surprised that when I went to the Pathways to Housing website there was no mention of the video projection campaign. Seems to me that an opportunity was lost to link the street campaign with the website. But I’m not being critical of the site which is very impressive. The home page is very graphically appealing and the invitation to “See Our Stories” is powerful. Clicking on the “Our Model: Pathways Housing First” link takes you to an ingenious animation how Pathways cost efficiently address the issue of homelessness for people with psychiatric disabilities. On this same page is a link to a documentary. Kudos to Pathways.
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1 http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/mobile-common-helps-non-profit-organizations-go-mobile-for-chile/print/
2 http://www.philanthropy.iupui.edu/Research/report-downloads.aspx?report=amex_gift_survey.pdf
3 http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=142817
4 http://www.causeworld.com/causes.html
5 http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/television/5733.html
6 http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/pathways-to-housing-goes-mobile-to-raise-funds-for-homeless/
2 http://www.philanthropy.iupui.edu/Research/report-downloads.aspx?report=amex_gift_survey.pdf
3 http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=142817
4 http://www.causeworld.com/causes.html
5 http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/television/5733.html
6 http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/pathways-to-housing-goes-mobile-to-raise-funds-for-homeless/
