Like the iPhone, the idea of raising money via a mobile phone is an idea that a lot of political campaigns and non-profits would like to get their palms around. Just imagine it. A large gathering of people at a concert are instructed by the rock idol of their choice to take out their cell phones and send a text message to a short code that will donate 2 dollars to XYZ charity. Or imagine a billboard asking for the same thing in major areas of stop and go transit. Sounds like a dream. But its not that easy and I have written and spoken about the challenges involved in the process at length.

The easiest way to raise money over the mobile phone is by means of Premium SMS (PSMS) (SMS = text messaging). About 18 months ago the carriers launched a service that allowed 3rd party vendors to sell mobile services and charge consumers through their phone bill. Essentially this allows you to buy a service via SMS and have it charged to your phone bill. Now, the carriers launched this service mainly to facilitate entertainment-based programming. Its simple. You don't have to get people to right a check, receive annoying phone calls or sign up on a website. Just have them send a keyword like "PDF" via text message to a short code like, for example, DONATE (366283) and your donation for whatever amount will be on your next phone bill. All that is needed is a call to action and perhaps a mass gathering of people and you got your self a mobile fundraising campaign. But because it was built for purely commercial purposes the carriers take a big chunk, up to 40 percent at times, of the revenue generated for a premium message / donation.

Most charities and non profits, have shied away from experimenting with mobile fundraising for that reason alone. As of right now their is also a price cap on how much people can donate. "The caps for individual charge and subscriptions are set on a carrier-by-carrier basis," says Doug Busk, General Manager at Singlepoint one of America's top mobile messaging aggregators "but the most recent version of the MMA Consumer Best Practices does lay out general terms in its most recent version (see page 14)." Douglas Grinspan, also from Singlepoint also chimed in to point out that some carriers also impose per subscription PSMS caps ...Sprint, for example, caps at $9.99/mo with $100 spending limit.

This ties into a "psychology of the donor" question which asks if you could get more money by cold calling people on the phone what happens if you call them after they already gave two bucks. Will they say, "I already gave" or could the micro donation lead to giving a little more. We can only wait and see. The UK arm of Amnesty International has decided to try another route by recently launching a digital wallet service to allow you to donate to them via your mobile phone. Instead of sending a text message to a premium sms number (short code) you'll be able to use PayPal rival LUUP to donate directly to them. Apparently the lower costs of doing things this way will let them gain an extra 15% on donations.

The first Amnesty International campaign where it will be possible to donate using LUUP will be related to a crisis campaign highlighting atrocities perpetrated against the people of Darfur. Launched today, this campaign will focus on the abuse of women’s rights in Darfur where rapes perpetrated by the state backed militia, the Janjawid, are a daily occurrence. Donations to the campaign will help Amnesty International to lobby the United Nations and the government of Sudan to deliver an effective peace-keeping force in the region as soon as possible.

Of course, the topic of using s Paypal Mobile like services to donate to organizations like Amnesty have come up in many a mobile fundraising discussion. It solves some of the problems above. "The UK arm of Amnesty ruled out premium rate text messages for donors as it felt it would be too costly as network operators took a slice of the pie and users were constrained by a maximum donation limit of £4.50." Using LUUP, however, means donors can give up to £800 to Amnesty International. To encourage donations, LUUP has vowed to top up money received by an additional 20 per cent.

There are, however, a couple of problems with it that must be considered the first being its level of ubiquity. The steps involved in sending money via services like LUUP or PayPal mobile are very cumbersome. Take Paypal Mobile for example. After you send the text message "5 to 555-555-5555" (5 dollars to some ones phone number) you receive a call back and have to enter a pin number. Compared to premium SMS this is already to much of a process and when it comes to process and attention span in the mobile world this is very important. A recent IDC study just recently reported that “mobile users show limited tolerance for prerolls lasting more than 8 to 10 seconds.” This means effective mobile marketing campaigns have to be short, catchy and not assume users are a captive audience.

Another issue is just how many people are LUUP or PayPal users to begin with. Everyone with a cell phone has a cell phone bill, not everyone at the place where you are marketing your mobile fundraising campaign has PayPal or LUUP. And, as talked about above, by the time they get home they will have already have forgotten The other challenge is of course (at least here in the United States) the fact that carriers like Cingular Wireless (now the new AT&T) just do not allow it. Simply put the current Cingular Wireless Policy prohibits the options of credit card and/or Paypal services for payment of content to Cingular Wireless customers. And this is relevant because Cingular Wireless is currently the largest carrier in the US... any campaign sans Cingular/AT&T may not be worth it.

All in all Amnesty is at least experimenting with notion of mobile donations, trying to get around the carriers and that is interesting. They see the mobile mediums worthwhileness. The real key is how and where they market this. As I mentioned before mobile donations are a great way to incentives people to give a little while at the same time opting into a mobile campaign. So large crowds and concerts are great mechanisms of delivery here. But so are congested stop and go transit sites like bus stops, train stations etc etc. As I always say mobile marketing requires marketing of its own. People have to know when and how to give and it has to be simple the end goal being making the end user feel socially responsible and mobily active.

[Mobility Site via PCPro]
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