Mobile Giving goes Mainstream

In the wake of the devastating earthquake that ravaged Haiti last week, something very cool has occurred in response to the tragedy: people all over the world have discovered mobile giving and are contributing to relief efforts to help Haiti’s population.

Making charitable donations via a mobile phone has been around for more than a year.  But sadly, sometimes it takes an event of massive proportions to get people’s attention, and the Haiti earthquake did just that.

The concept of mobile giving is simple: By texting a keyword to a designated short code via a mobile phone, a micro-donation of $5 or $10 can be made to a cause and 100 percent of that donation goes to the recipient charity.  The donation later appears as a charge on your carrier bill, standard rates may apply.

In the first 24 hours after the earthquake struck, 8-10 national non-profit organizations had set up campaigns using short codes managed by the Mobile Giving Foundation (MGF), a non profit organization dedicated to helping other non-profits raise funds through the mobile channel.

Within 72 hours, mobile donations surpassed $10 million dollars across all of MGF’s short codes.  (The previous high mark for a single mobile-giving campaign had been approximately $500,000.)  Within five days after the quake (i.e. Sunday), mobile donations exceeded $20 million.  As you read this post, donations have surged past $30 million.  And this number only represents giving in North America.

Needless to say, mobile giving has had its “coming-out party,” as hundreds of thousands of people across the planet chose a quick, easy way to lend their support.

Unfortunately, it took a disaster like Haiti’s earthquake to energize a mobile-giving base.  However, with mobile giving achieving some measure of critical mass and “going mainstream,” victims of future incidents such as this one will be the ultimate benefactors.