Two Charities Test $25 Cellphone Contributions

This week, I chose this article, Two Charities Test $25 Cellphone Contributions, by Nicole Wallace, from the Chronicle of Philanthrophy:
http://philanthropy.com/blogs/prospecting/two-charities-test-25-cellphone-contributions/27837

The article initially caught my eye because $25 is the amount of money that the Church Health Center is attempting to get people to donate each month through their new donation initiative that my PR Research group is specifically helping to research.

Previously, cell phone users could only donate $5 or $10 to non-profits via text messages. Two unnamed charities are testing the possibility of $25 text message donations. The article suggests that campaigns based on text message donations often result in significant numbers of donors, but the donation limit is often a setback. Although, when we visited the Red Cross on Tuesday, they told us that the popular $10 text messages for relief efforts in Haiti were hugely successful. This probably has a lot to do with the numerous national commercials featuring celebrities and the fact that the Red Cross is widely known as being a reputable organization.

I talked to a friend yesterday about the Church Health Center's "I Give $25" campaign. She thinks that people are likely to give $25, as long as they have been informed about the need. She also thinks making donating easier, such as through automatic draft, is a great idea and makes people more likely to donate. I think the convenience of donating via text message is also effective in encouraging donations, possibly even more than automatic draft, since donors can choose to give when they know for sure that they have the money available.

Although, I think some people might not fully understand how text message donations work. This article made me think of a Facebook status update I saw on failbooking.com once. A teen girl encouraged her friends to text the Red Cross's Haiti donation number, saying that she had already texted the number several times. One of her friends had to inform her that, every time she texted the number, SHE had to donate $10, not some other organization.