Apologies for disappearing off the map for a bit. Our baby girl was born a few weeks ago.
As a new mum, Childsi’s cause resonates even more strongly with me (I’ve been a huge fan of their work for a while). Childsi help abandoned babies in Uganda. They’ve also built up a great supporter base by using social media and powerful videos which tell the stories of the children they help. Childsi aren’t just a great cause; they are a fantastic example of strong charity marketing and stakeholder engagement. They’ve done all this despite having minimal resources.
Childsi have just announced that Open Fundraising will be helping them develop their mobile giving strategy, using Mobilise, their SMS-based regular giving platform, for the fundraising activity. They’ll be focusing on integrating mobile with Childsi’s website and Facebook pages first.
What I love about this is that the donation process is quick, clean and simple. (You can see what Childsi’s mobile donate function will look like on the UK Fundraising site.) All you need to do is put in your mobile number, then you’ll get a text straight away to which you reply yes to set up a regular donation. No need to enter your name, address or bank details. Easy peasy. It eliminates one of digital fundraising’s problems; the high fallout rate before checkout. Paul de Gregorio has blogged about how 50% of the people who start the process of giving you a donation online won’t complete it.
As I predicted on The Guardian Voluntary Sector Network this week, smart charities will put mobile at the centre of what they do in 2013. What’s really exciting to me about the Childsi/ Open Fundraising collaboration to me is that it shows you don’t have to be a huge charity to use mobile. Innovation and strong supporter engagement need not cost megabucks. And with 1.8 mobiles for every person in the UK, can your charity afford not to use mobile?
I’ll be watching how Childsi’s mobile strategy develops with interest.