MobileActive's Blog

Is mobile fundraising the next frontier for charities?
Posted by KatrinVerclas on Nov. 29, 2007

The numbers speak for themselves: There are currently 236 million cell phone users in the U.S. – an astounding 76% penetration. In December of last year alone, 18.7 billion text messages were sent — up 92% from 9.7 billion in December 2005. Estimates for this year are topping 195 billion text messages sent in 2007. That is 600 million text messages a day.

Needless to say, fundraisers and nonprofits are salivating at the potential of reaching all of these people where they are, at the moment they are moved by a cause, and when they are able to GIVE – with their thumbs.

Mobile fundraising for worthwhile causes are indeed beginning to make headlines. So what is the truth behind the hype? What can fundraisers and nonprofits promoting a cause do and expect as results, and what creative ideas have gone untapped so far?

Advocacy charity Citizen Media Democratic Participation Disaster & Humanitarian Relief Education Environment Health Livelihood & Economic Development mobile mobile fundraising mobileactive premium sms sms

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Join the discussion on mobiles in human rights!
Posted by KatrinVerclas on Nov. 28, 2007

Just back from MobileActive07 in Brazil (more on that shortly!) we are immediately jumping into sharing some of our learnings in an online discussion on using mobiles in human rights work over with our colleagues at New Tactics. Please join us there where we'll be dicussing with human rights practitioners all over the world question like:

1) How are you using mobiles in human rights work?

human rights mobile phone mobileactive new tactics

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Nonprofits from Around the World Gather for MobileActive07
Posted by KatrinVerclas on Nov. 24, 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Nonprofits from Around the World Gather for MobileActive07 at Mobilefest
on Use of Mobile Phones in Economic Empowerment and Civic Participation

Sao Paulo, Brazil, November 23, 2007 – Ring, ring …Social Change is Calling: MobileActive is convening technologists and activists using mobile phones and text messaging for economic empowerment, advocacy, environmental and democracy campaigns from around the world.

MobileActive07 will take place in conjunction with Mobilefest in Sao Paulo, Brazil November 24 and 25th, 2007. “Mobile phones have become innovative tools for social innovation,” said Katrin Verclas, co-founder of MobileActive. “With close to 3 billion phones in circulation around the work, in many countries mobile phones are the easiest and least expensive way to communicate and are far more pervasive than the Internet. As a result, mobile phones have been harnessed by individuals and organizations to monitor elections, protect the environment, for citizen journalism, for urgent alerts, and for economic empowerment and advocacy campaigns all over the world.

Advocacy Citizen Media Democratic Participation Disaster & Humanitarian Relief Education Environment Health Livelihood & Economic Development mobile event mobileactive07 mobilefest

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SMS Campaign to Fight Violence Against Women
Posted by CorinneRamey on Nov. 23, 2007

Several civil society groups in Africa are using SMS messages as part of the global "16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence." The campaign, hosted by the Women of Uganda Network (WOUGET) in collaboration with Women'sNet and APC-Africa Women (AAW), has the theme "Demanding Implementation, Challenging Obstacles: End Violence Against Women." The groups will send an SMS on each of the 16 days of the campaign with a message relating to gender-based violence.

The campaign website lists three ways to partipate:

africa domestic violence Health sms

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World Bank Conference on m-Government
Posted by CorinneRamey on Nov. 21, 2007

The World Bank e-Development Thematic Group is hosting a global dialogue on the use of mobiles in government. The seminar, titled "m-Government: The Next Frontier in Public Service Delivery," will take place in Washington, D.C. and is part of the eGovWorld conference, from November 29-30 in New Delhi, India.

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Txt for Fish, Sex, and Med Info - The Wall Street Journal
Posted by KatrinVerclas on Nov. 21, 2007

Mainstream press in the United States is picking up on the mobile revolution.  In an article yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, Fish Phone, Sex Info, our friends in San Francisco, and medicine compliance programs are profiled:

In England, women have received text reminders to take their birth-control pills. In Australia, texting helped AIDS patients adhere to complicated drug regimens. And German researchers are examining how text messages can offer psychological support to bulimics. A recent study in New Zealand found that smoking-cessation programs were more effective in conjunction with supportive text messages.

Text reminders and health and consumer info lines are exploding in popularity, paving the way for innovative prorams in other areas as well that pertain to point-of-purchase consumer information, and using textig for civic and advocacy information that we are, of course, particularly interested in.

Advocacy Environment Health mobileactive text info txt for health wall street journal wsj

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Bangladeshi Cyclon Relief: Fundraising Via SMS
Posted by KatrinVerclas on Nov. 21, 2007

Bangla blogging platform Somewherein,together with Save the Children, has launched an SMS fundraising campaign thay call “Jagoron” (‘the awakening') to generate funds from within Bangladesh to support Sidr victims.

A mobile phone user texts the keyword 'SAVE' to the given number. Each SMS costs Bangladeshi Taka (BDT)2. Somewherein and other sponsors add a donation to each SMS generated -- currently 15BDT (this amount goes up as more corporate sponsors join the campaign) for every BDT2 generated with the total amount going to the Save the Children Cyclone Relief Fund.

The service is available to Bangladeshi residents only.

bangladesh Disaster & Humanitarian Relief mobile campaign mobile fundraising sms

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Thanking the U.S. Military With SMS?
Posted by CorinneRamey on Nov. 21, 2007

In the United States this Thanksgiving holiday, Americans can send an SMS to support military men and women serving around the world as part of the America Supports You (ASY) campaign. ASY, a program of the U.S. Department of Defense, allows mobile users to send an SMS to short code 89-279 (TX ASY) with a message of support or thanks for military troops. The program, "recognizes citizens' support for military men and women and communicates that support to members of our Armed Forces at home and abroad."

While initially intended to promote an exchange of messages from troops abroad to the senders, the DOD yesterday abruptly changed the program and now sends back only prepared thank-you messages rather than live messages from troops aborad.

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Artivists and Mobile Phones: The Transborder Immigrant Project
Posted by CorinneRamey on Nov. 18, 2007

Editor's NOTE, September 2010: The Transborder Immigration Tool has, since this post was first put online in 2007, generated quite a bit of controversy. As far as we know, the tool was never deployed with anyone (we are checking with Ricardo Dominguez on the state of development of the tool) but since then has risen to the attention (as the art project/concept/idea) of even Glenn Beck, a US conservative commentator. A YouTube video of Ricardo describing the project from April 2010 is here, and an article in the San Diego City Beat outlines the political story of the last year of the Transborder Immigration Tool.

***

Advocacy border politics GPS immigrants Livelihood & Economic Development mobile transborder immigrant tool

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New Tactics Discussion: Using Mobile Phones in Action
Posted by CorinneRamey on Nov. 17, 2007

New Tactics, a community for people committed to human rights, is sponsoring a virtual discussion on "Using Mobile Phones in Action" from November 28 to December 4. MobileActive.org is partnering with New Tactics and is also participating in this online conversation. We all believe that "strategic and tactical thinking, long used by business and military strategists, is an effective means for the human rights movement to expand options and possibilities of what can be done." The discussion will focus on tactics for activism using mobile phones.

activism human rights mobileactive new tactics

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