SMS Giving Launched
22 October 2013 at 10:22 am
Mobile donation platform, GiveEasy has launched an Australian SMS text message ‘giving’ system for Australian charities ahead of the telcos.
GiveEasy’s Business Development Manager Jeremy Tobias said the Australian SMS giving platform gives charities a giving solution via mobile texting that the telcos have so far not come to the party with.
Tobias says the system is simple for both the donor and the charities.
“The system provides charities with a unique mobile phone number that can be used for any fundraising appeal and allows mobile phone donors to make a fast donation by just typing in the dollar amount within the SMS.”
He said that the SMS system works especially for instant appeals such as disaster appeals during bushfires, flooding and earthquakes as well as appeals, events and every-day giving.”
“We have spent over six months developing the sophisticated technology to create a new national giving network that complements the GiveEasy App.
“Unlike the UK SMS giving technology that works through their local telcos, the Australian system allows donors to give whatever amount they choose with monies coming off their credit card.”
In the UK donors can only click on the £2, £5 or £10 amounts to give.
“Our vision since inception has been to bring the connected world to the charitable world. Following a successful event last week (10×10 Sydney), we are pleased to roll this solution out to the entire Australian charity market. We have already received significant interest from charities big and small following this event.”
GiveEasy’s original free mobile donation app launched as a Not for Profit venture in 2012 and won a national innovation award presented by The Australian newspaper and Shell as part of their annual Innovation Challenge in December 2012.
Australia’s Not for Profits have been urging telcos to do more to help the sector use mobile telephone technology to raise funds for more than a decade.
Not for Profit peak body, the Community Council for Australia (CCA) launched a campaign calling on the telcos to use their technology and their reach to help establish a Mobile Giving (giving via text message) platform in Australia back in March 2012.
Donating via text is huge in the UK, Canada and the US – after the Haiti earthquake, the American Red Cross raised almost $25m in donations in two weeks from text messages alone!
CCA CEO David Crosbie welcomed the SMS platform saying the more avenues for giving that open up the better.
He said there are a number of groups looking at effective giving platforms using mobile, online and apps as well as workplace giving.
“They are all great and we encourage them all,” he said
However, he said he believed that while the telcos were slow to develop instant SMS giving they will eventually come to the party.
Pro Bono Australia began discussions with Australian telcos in 2003 to try to engage them in a simple system to allow donations via SMS on mobile phones.
In 2005, Australia's mobile phone operators joined forces to help drive donations towards the Asian tsunami and earthquake appeal – using SMS text messaging in an Australian fundraising first. The companies involved were: Telstra; Optus; Vodafone; 3; Orange; Virgin Mobile; AAPT; Primus Telecom; Austar; SimPlus; m8 telecom; B Digital; DigiPlus; and People Telecom.
But little has happened with the telcos since then.
The new GiveEasy SMS system can be seen at www.giveeasy.org
