I am often told by people who "know" that, like the blogosophere, the mobile political bandwagon wont take off until someone finds a way to raise a bunch of money using nothing but cell phones. While I disagree with the "fundraising only" assumption behind that statement I do not deny it as a possible scenario that could bring mobile technology to the forefront of politics.

Just imagine it. A large gathering of people at a concert or rally are instructed by the rock idol or political candidate of their choice to take out their cell phones and send a text message to a short code that will donate 2-20 dollars to XYZ charity or campaign. 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.

There are several things holding campaigns and non-profits from using the cell phone as a fundraising tool. 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. This is unacceptable to most charities or campaigns.

When it comes to political campaigns there are also some problems in this process regarding campaign financial contribution laws. For those of you that are familiar with campaign donation regulations you will understand what I mean when I tell you that the campaign, in the end, gets their money in a lump sum some 40-60 days later. Most charities and non profits, have shied away from experimenting with mobile fundraising for these 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.

ALONG COMES THE EDWARDS CAMPAIGN

Following a strong tradition of being the first regarding mobile technologies integration with US politics, The Jon Edwards campaign, as of last night became the first US political campaign to launch a mobile fundraising initiative. But they did not go through the carriers or Paypal to do it. Instead, they harnessed a new technology developed by Mcommons (formally Rights-Group / Politxt) that converges text messaging with a PBX API to create a seamless "call to donate" process from your cell phone. The campaign was launched last night and only lasted a couple of hours. Here is what happened. Last night over 13,000 supporters who have already opted into the Edwards text messaging campaign received a text message telling then the following:

John Edward wants 2 talk 2 you! Hit Reply. Type "CALL" & hit Send. John will call YOU right back! OR call 202-350-9749. txt STOP 2 unsub

After following those directions my phone starting ringing. I picked up the phone and heard ringing myself as if I was making a call. Suddenly I heard a message from John Edwards telling me the following:

“I’m calling to remind you that with just over a week before the end of the quarter the time to act is now. I’m not asking you to help us out-raise everyone else. I’m only asking you for what we need to get our message of real change out to voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, and other key states nationwide.”

After the message was played users had the option to either press 1 or wait to be connected to a phone bank where an Edwards operator would be ready to take down your credit card number :-) Note: If you follow the process now you will get a similar message from Edwards followed by an apology that he cannot forward you to a call bank anymore. But no worries, If you still want to give go to the campaign website where a big blue Donate link is waiting for you.

This was a very clever way to get around the carrier fiasco of PSMS billing while at the same time allowing the personal connection that could possibly lead to higher financial contributions than those limited by the carriers. Its also very very legal :-)

While the results on how much raised are still not in (and the possibility of a second round in the works) inside sources have told me that the response rate for people that texted back to receive the call where "very high." High enough, I was told, that soon everyone would want to be doing this for one reason or another. Colleen Murray, an Edwards spokeswoman, said the mobile fundraising drive is an example of how political campaigns are “using new media to do the oldest thing in politics: connect with voters.” But what most impresses me about this campaign is the fact that it is the ONLY WAY to contact people on their cell phones to solicit financial donations or whatever.

As poll talkers, Get Out The Vote Activists and political campaigners are slowly beginning to realize, you cannot cold call cell phones. Its illegal. And as more and more people abandon their landline's for cell phones its going to get harder and harder to reach more and more people. The trick? Get them to opt in via text message and then text them to call you using PBX technology. Very very clever.

In the next few weeks, the Edwards campaign also plans to roll out an initiative inviting supporters to phone in comments for Mr. Edwards. Some of the messages will be posted on the candidate’s website. We will see how that goes. In the past the Edwards campaign asked people to text back what they thought while watching the presidential debate. That, apparently, did not go so well. Perhaps, as the fundraising initiative seems to show, all that is needed is a little voice mixed win with all this texting.

Campaigns & Elections | Fundraising | Mobile
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