Non-profits and the mobile web

I’ve always liked Salvation Army’s advertising. It’s stark, a bit shocking, makes you uncomfortable. It’s about poverty.

Fundraising advertising needs to conjure up a pretty powerful scenario to be effective. Something like:

What if you were out getting a bagel at lunch, walked under a bridge and someone lived there? There you are, talking on your iPhone, strolling through somebody’s bedroom. Confronted by your own comparative wealth. You’d probably feel moved to make a “donation” right there.

During a fundraising campaign, advertising tries to recreate that feeling. Salvation Army is trying to bring you into that moment, and remind you there’s a way to help.

The potential donor must then sustain that generous urge until they can get themselves to an envelope, or a hotline, or dig out their credit card and start typin’. A lot to ask of a piece of advertising.

Fortunately, communications has undergone a tremendous upgrade in the past two years. Through mobile devices and the location-based services they make available, donors can now be hit in the gut and the wallet at the same time. “For this new generation of donors, pop culture, public discourse, social media, and charity all run through the same router“. There’s finally a convergence of need, attention, and the ability to give.

Generation X and the Millennials don’t want to go through the trouble of entering a 16-digit credit card number to make a $25 donation.

Melissa Brown, associate director of research at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University

This became crystal clear when $1 000 000/day was raised through texting in the week after the Haiti earthquake.

Charitable giving is a dopamine bonanza, and the speed with which mobile can deliver the hit makes it extra rewarding. We give because it feels great, but we need instant gratification.

Mobile usage in Canada is at least 22 million (2008), or about 65% of the population, with no doubt increases in the years since and to come. This represents a huge opportunity for non-profits to have a conversation with donors at the right time and in the right place. When need strikes, the solution can be presented quickly—a win win for everyone.

Ideas for transforming giving with the mobile web:

• Mobile reporting from disaster areas on Twitter. Include a text-to-give number for immediate relief & relay the results.
• Foursquare check-ins at volunteer or fundraising events. Connect with a sponsor who will donate 25¢ for every check-in.
• iPhone App-guided tours of your work with simple examples of the benefit a $5 donation can make, and the ability to make that donation. Seeing the connection between good work and a few dollars in the flesh can be very compelling.
• Requests for donation of Twitter and Facebook status with text-to-give info when need is great.

Early adoption of the mobile web can get attention for your cause if it’s creative and picked up by the social media marketing community. More than that, it provides a better experience for donors who want to engage with your org. Have a mobile site created that streamlines an informative donation process for them. Attention is so scarce that anything less is a roadblock to giving.