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Mobile Giving, Microfinance and iPhone Apps – Part 1
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Yesterday, I stumbled across an article published in the Chicago Tribune about the possibilities behind mobile giving. The article (at http://bit.ly/wnHrW) highlights the work of the Mobile Giving Foundation, and it’s CEO, Jim Manis, said that “giving should be easy, it should be fun and it should be rewarding…” And in a country with a total of US$300 billion a year in charitable giving, the majority of which comes from individual donors, mobile giving is a way to engage a younger demographic in giving.

How it works is pretty simple:
1) Donors send a text message with a certain key word, (for example, “food”) to a number that has been set up for the charity
2) The donor receives a text message back asking for confirmation. Once replied, they receive a thank you message, and $5 is charged to the donor’s next phone bill.
3) Donations under the Mobile Giving Foundation are in $5 increments, with the option to increase this to $10. If the donor wants to give more than $5, they simple text more than once.

Jim Manis points out that this is something that isn’t suitable for every organisation out there. And to many degrees, this is true. As such, the Mobile Giving Foundation focuses on non-profits that have annual revenue of at least US$500,000.
So could this model be replicated in Australia and elsewhere, and where could other benefits of this mobile giving model go?

The world has recently seen the explosion of microfinance, pioneered by the Grameen Bank, and this form of giving could have the potential to increase microfinance exponentially. For example, a large base of donors giving $5 a month would give an ongoing and sustainable avenue of funds for microfinance organisations to operate under. When countries like the US have a total of $300 billion in annual charitable giving, there is a huge opportunity for microfinance along with other organisations involved with similar areas of development.

Mobile giving through text messaging is only one way in which advances in mobile technology can be used for charitable purposes. With a growing number of smart phones and corresponding app stores, such as BlackBerries, Android-based phones and of course the iPhone, the potential for applications based around the common good is enormous. Along with increasing individual giving, these applications and platforms also provide potential avenues of advocacy, lobbying and awareness around many different issues. These kinds of apps are beginning to appear, but there is still largely a gap between online advocacy and networks, such as GetUp! in Australia and AVAAZ.org, and their crossover onto smart phone and other portable technology which are becoming increasingly prominent.

There are definitely opportunities to explore in this area – I’ll talk about this in the future! Just quick thoughts for now!

July 29, 2009 | 1:41 AM Comments  1 comments

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Comments

williamwer43 jonathan katz
July 29, 2009 | 1:55 AM
wow such a wonderful idea
this is amazing. I never knew technology could do something this wonderful for the world.
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