Charity begins (and ends?) with mobile

One of the big topics omitted from everyone’s ‘what’s gonna be hot in 2010’ lists this year has been charity donations using mobile. 2009 already saw mobile increasingly playing a role in UK TV charity shows such as Comic Relief and Children in Need, but within the industry, these were rather viewed as a way of slowly re-introducing text to TV after the raft of scandals back in 2007/8.

But one massive earthquake and suddenly we can see that the humble consumer really does see the mobile as the tool of choice for delivering charity donations. For the first time ever, the Red Cross has seen digital donations outstrip those done through traditional channels (phone calls, banks etc) for the appeal for help for Haiti.

This is an interesting development and raises some interesting questions. For instance, has it become more popular simply because mobile is now more zeitgeisty than ever before? Did the statement that no one was going to take a cut of the donated amount encourage people to use mobile to donate? Or, even though it cost a few pence in network charges, people just like the idea that they can pick up their mobile and donate money seemingly immediately while watching the news?

Personally, I think that its all three: consumers now treat mobile in a very different way to how they did just a year ago. They do use it to socially network while watching TV (even I do it now and I'm 98 next birthday). They also see mobile as a way of paying for things, so long as it is below a certain value. I also think that the stigma of the phone voting scandals has gone. Well, the whiff of scandal has, some of the stains remain, but people can live with stains (again, being 97, I have to).

So we are going to see a boom in charity donations via text this year, but that’s not necessarily a good thing. Back in July 2009 we ran a piece in the Telemedia360 newsletter about how the success of charity donations was a bit of a double edged sword. Doing it is great and it’s a role the mobile industry should play, but it does actually cost money to develop and deliver the charity services and companies in the value chain (all bar the network operators if they apply ‘standard text rate will apply’ coding) lose money on it.

So it’s ok for those big, high profile events such as Children in Need and for sudden international disasters such as the tragedy in Haiti – we all need to pull together – but it could become as unwelcome as high street chuggers (“charity muggers” that stand in the high street and practically beat you into submission with their Help the Aged clipboards).

If every charity wants to start using text or WAP as a donation channel then the telemedia industry has to look closely at how this is made to work. Already charities are cold calling people at home (ironically I, a 97 year old, was called by Help the Aged just the other day and asked to set up a standing order over the phone: they should be helping me I croaked and hung up). If they are going to start texting its going to get messy.

And any proliferation in text donations is going to necessitate a charge by service providers for doing it, which then starts the text rip off rumour mill running again.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Currently, even though there is a huge attraction to mobile charity donations, the issue of mobile billing is still a problem. One company, which wishes to remain names currently, is conducting some research with a cancer charity in the UK centred around mobile donations, and has found that, even with a really well designed interface and a clear DONATE NOW button, 90% of users drop out at this stage.

Payforit3.0, which is due to hit third party mobile services with the impact of a wet flannel half heartedly flung against the bathroom mirror in March is rumoured to also feature within its slickly redesigned interface (apparently it has colour and a logo and everything: the kids’ll love it!) a more user-friendly charity donation button.

But with the huge lack of marketing and publicity that still surround Payforit, it will be interesting to see whether this has any impact on things. So perhaps it’s not so surprising why so many people left charity donation off their hot for 2010 lists: maybe it will be a victim of its own success… (TO DONATE TO ‘VICTIMS OF THEIR OWN SUCCESS’ TEXT SUCKER TO 2020023837737774738747)