SMS in Charity

New Lottery Boost for Charities - 29 June 2004

After 12 months of wrangling, lottery operator Million-2-1 have been given the go-ahead by the Gaming Board of Great Britain to run the first regional mobile phone lottery reports manchester news.

"The game has been created to generate extra funds for a cancer research, and a charity which helps underprivileged children.

Million-2-1 spokesman, Scott Davis said: "This lottery aims to make it easier for charities to gain extra funding".

How does it work?

"Under the scheme players are asked to register once by texting "Manchester" to 88821 and then each week they will receive a free text message asking them how many of the £1 tickets they want. If they don't want any they simply do not reply".

Cancer Fundraising Through SMS - Feb 19 2004

Fundraising through SMS, which is already big in UK, is now being tried in Australia, this time for cancer charity, reports Herald Sun. Sports fans in an Australian football game will be reminded to send money through SMS during the game halftime...A community service ad will appear on Telstra Dome's screen twice at halftime.

An automated SMS thankyou will acknowledge the pledge and donors will be called back a couple of days later to arrange payment.

Charity Springs Novel Text Message for Busy Donors - Sep 13 2003

A UAE charity, The Beit Al Khair Charity Society, is launching an SMS campaign called the School Bag Project, to raise money for needy school children and provide them with a yearly supply of pens and notebooks.

Random messages inviting support for the project are sent out by SMS. To donate, mobile users need only reply to the text message which is then billed to them at a premium rate via their cell phone bills.

Fund raising by SMS is an interesting concept and has many times proven successful but sending out random SMS is always a bad idea and against guidelines most countries are striving for, which is to only send text messages to people who opt-in, ie. agree to participate in a given campaign.

Gulf News

SMS to Donate - Sep 11 2003

By sending an SMS for 1 euro (approx $ 1.-) as of September 15, Italians can feed a child for 5 days. This is a 2003 campaign launched by School Feeding, part of the World Food Programme of the UN, which has emergency and development projects in 82 countries world-wide.

1,200 post offices in Italy are participating and approximately 3 thousand Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM), stores. TIM has created a special toll-free number and will forward the proceeds of the SMS. Telecom Italia Mobile was the first to send a SMS with a generous contribution of 25 thousand euros as "an invitation to all Italians to join in the battle against one of the most tragic social injustices of our times".

A previous campaign "SMS-to-donate" occurred in January-February of 2002, when French association Restos du Coeurs teamed with mobile operator Orange to provide a short code, where for every SMS sent by generous donators, needy families with small children were given a basket with food, milk, baby food and diapers.

Charities Call on Mobile Operators to Take Less - Jul 24 2003

Mobile operators in the UK currently take as much as 40% of revenues raised via reverse billing. Although some charities have brokered a lower rate for specific campaigns, there's no standard charity rate for SMS, according to New Media Zero via Moco News.

In other countries, though not the rule, there have been examples of fund raising campaigns by SMS where the entire proceeds were donated to the charity and in some instances, the fund raising was closely associated with the mobile operator himself. Most recently, Telkom South Africa soliciting phone wishes on the occasion of Nelson Mandela's birthday or Australia's Telestra's fund raising campaign in 2001 as part of a national awareness campaign to prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Mobile clients were urged to download a "Red Nose" logo (the campaign was coined "Red Nose Day") and the proceeds were donated to SIDS Australia.

Unite Against Hunger by SMS - Jun 30 2003

British chef Ainsley Harriott launched a South African campaign in the fight against hunger, Harriott is the presenter of the popular BBC programme Ready Steady Cook according to The Star.

The campaign, Unite Against Hunger, was launched at the Red Cross Home Base Project Cape Town, and will see donated food being distributed to poverty-stricken areas throughout the country. People are asked to donate food while shopping by placing items in carts in supermarkets. Or cellphone users can send an SMS with the word "hunger" to 082-003-9040, where 10 Rand ($ 1.35) will be automatically invoiced onto the subscriber's phone bill.