MobileCause and Disney Partner for "Heart of Gold" Sweepstakes

From December 3rd through December 17th, the "Disney Princess: Heart of Gold" campaign will engage consumer participation via text messaging, by calling on the public to send a text message keyword to a special short-code phone number. In return, Disney will donate $1 for every text message that is received, for a grand total donation of up to $50,000.
Consumer participants in this mobile texting campaign will be automatically entered to win a grand prize consisting of Disney Princess products and a $10,000 donation in their name to the Toys for Tots chapter nearest them. Additionally, as a 'golden thank you' every participant will receive a phone call the next day with a special greeting from Cinderella herself! http://mobilecause.com/Cinderella.MobileCause.wav

SMS Donation and Charity Campaigns

It’s been awhile… We have been really busy working on every part of the business and especially our School Alert and Crime Stop Alert programs. After 2 years in obscurity Charity campaigns now have been recognized by the most carriers (except T-Mobile – weird?) as a category for PSMS. Even though there is no precedence stated on revenue shares and each campaign will be judged on a Case by Case scenario it does open itself up to a whole new donor acquisition possibility for our clients.

I believe the carriers will be more favorable to campaigns that obviously carry great volume (large national marketing reach) and of course existing brand recognition from the likes of the top 50 Non Profit organization. We are glad to be working with a number of these organizations and their corporate partners. We are committed to creating a solution for smaller non-profits and have already come up with a number of solutions that we are testing.

Mobile and social development ventures are also gaining a lot of traction with the reality that in the developing world cell phone Air Time is one of the hottest commodities being traded. Imagine the day that you can buy airtime on your provider network here and invest it as a micro-loan to a beneficiary in India. Many great possibilities…
We are looking forward to designing and launching our client’s donation campaigns over the next 3 months and living our vision. Connect. And change the world.


Hendre

Why are we doing this?

These last 10 days I have had an incredible travel schedule, NYC, Mexico and Oregon. During my time I got to meet with tons of NPO’s and their representatives. Passionate people living with enormous sense of purpose and making every encounter count. Very inspiring!!

Having been in the non-profit world a over 12 years it seems easy to get somewhat hardened to the next set of statistics and yet another plight for help, I sometimes can feel overwhelmed with the huge need and the “stuckness” of the resources to match the cries for support. This is known as compassion fatigue and is what causes the high turn over in staff in the larger non-profits. I guess through the whole throws of being a start-up and getting everything going, I too had been suffering from a form of compassion fatigue; that is until yesterday.

Yesterday morning I was introduced to Jeff Leeland from the Sparrowclubs based in Bend Oregon. In his kind manner he shared the personal journey that started this amazing organization. Everything - in detail from his son’s leukemia to the young kid Dameon in Jeff’s PE class (Jeff was the coach then) that with his gift of 12 five dollar bills started a flood of compassion that supported Jeff’s family both in emotional and financial ways. They raised over $227k in 4 weeks and this is nearly 15 years ago. As he was telling his story and how from that miracle of one child deciding to make a difference for another child in a medical crisis a whole organization was birthed I kept trying to fight the tears. No use, they just kept coming and it felt good to just cry for a moment. Funny how allowing, myself to share or empathize with Jeff provided much needed healing to me. I walked away feeling somehow reconnected to why I started MobileCause.

Jeff says: “Kids will do heroic things if they are given heroic things to do.” That is what we are about: using the most ubiquitous piece of personal technology that an individual owns to do heroic things. By participating in Mobile Campaigns that have cause elements we can actually change the world. There are over 235 Million cell phone users in the US alone. Imagine what would change if the whole world’s cell-phone users (2.7 billion people) decided to do a heroic act just like Dameon did for Jeff. We can actually achieve unprecedented transformation.

I got on the plane back from Oregon last night and read Jeff’s book “One Small Sparrow”. I totally lost it again. I was the guy in seat 2A balling as he was reading a book. Somehow that just didn’t matter. I felt compassion for Jeff and the myriads of kids that have decided to do heroic things for others. Through the tears I got in touch with a deep seated passion for why I do this and why I am committed to enabling Non-Profits and people to do heroic things via the mobile phone.

It’s easy to get lost in the day to day tasks, even if you work (and perhaps especially so) for a non-profit and yet hearing the story and the miracle that sprung from the act of kindness that one person started and allowing that to go deep into my soul, restored in me the passion to make a difference.

Connect. Change the World!
Hendre

13yo is nu txt mssg chmpN

Looking over the week in news you will find that 13 year old Morgan Pozgar won $25,000 dollars for being the fastest text messager (see yahoo for article Text Message Champ). First of all that is a lot of cash to type fast and secondly with text messaging becoming a sport I need to be the sponsor! How big is this going to get? Will it be the next NASCAR? Probably not but what it does tell us is that mobile marketing and mobile use is only getting started. With all the teenagers having their own mobile, there is usually at least 2 more mobile users in the house (mom and dad). As more and more people use them, the technology and ability for organizations to connect with their constituents is going to get even more exciting. Please comment on how you plan to use the mobile to improve our world!

Tragedy and Mobile

This past week has been tough. So many innocent lives devastated by a heinous act of one. My heart goes out the families involved and many people that have been affected by the happenings at Virginia Tech.
Over the week the conversations in the media have shifted from the perpetrator and the event to what can be done to prevent something like this from happening again. The Mobile Phone alert system has been mentioned more than once, however it seems to be questioned because of some of the perceived obstacles such as GPS use, and carrier privacy concerns. Mobile Alert systems have been implemented well where the need has been acknowledged and SMS is seen as a regular form of communication. Take Netcare 911 in South Africa as an example. Security companies have employed the SMS alert system with huge successes and more than 70 000 people a month have signed up for their services since inception. Check out Netcare911

SMS however is ubiquitous and to a large degree universal especially when considering colleges. We are in discussion right now to add our SMS feature to both a School Broad casting company that will pair voice and text options extremely well and also create a mobile extension for a college based online messaging solution. The most basic need is to have a communication and to be able to have that be managed in a manner that will allow for the utmost availability possible. VT sent an e-mail 2 hours after the first shooting and there is much discussion about the time delay. The most basic answer to why this happened is that someone had to be in an office to activate this message and most office personnel only arrived around 9am. SMS I believe could answer some of the issues even though there will remain more holes.
The shortcode gateway we use at MobileCause allows for 2 way messaging and given the correct moderation tools (we have these designed) could create a way for a student in trouble to communicate their need. We know that SMS was the only form of communication that still worked in the days after Hurricane Katrina, yet there was no single moderation system. MobileCause will be rolling out such systems with our partners in the next 60 days.

We are launching our suite of products for ministries which will include Mobile Devotionals, and other unique tools that ministries can use to spread the Word this week. We are looking forward to truly serving others with our applications and knowledge.

Getting the Word (and the BRAND) OUT

Some new developments have changed the scene for Cause Marketing via Mobile. The carriers have now created an action field for charity in their Messaging briefs. In other words they now acknowledge a distinction between general mobile marketing and the non-Profit world. YIPPEE!!

There are now parameters for how this plays out (non officials ones in any case) but it is a huge step forward. The field says that carriers will approve charity based premium messaging on a case by case system.
This could take weeks and if it is anything like getting shortcodes and general campaigns approved it will take 8-12 weeks. So even though the carriers have moved a step in the right direction it is imperative that the NPO’s lead the charge by getting their brands on the third screen.

The key is to get the word out there, to get your cause and mission available on the phone so end-users can interact with your organization. Think – adding a SMS call to action on your current print marketing; in your magazine add – Text “ALERT to 85944 for updates on what our Cause is up to”. This way you can send people a reminder of your web URL and ensure that you have a low threshold interactive call to action.

Mobile is a an integral part of extending your reach and a way to invite people into a greater experience with the Cause by starting on the phone and then moving to a full interactive experience that includes the phone and the web. We are seeing more and more NPO’s developing WAP sites and engaging in SMS campaigns. I believe there is a wave of SMS campaigns coming and we are looking forward to now releasing our new campaign designs and unique Cause Marketing Strategies that we have been working on for over a year.

This is going to be a great new season!!

CTIA: President Bush and Clinton!

This morning at the CTIA wireless convention we had the privilege of former president's George Bush and Bill Clinton as addressing us a keynote speakers.

They addressed the unifying capacity of wireless technology as well as the responsibility we have in this industry to ensure that the technology is utilized to better the world so people are more aware of their common humanity than their interest based differences.

President Clinton referenced a key opportunity and from the way I see things the next wave of social caring. How can we give people who in developing countries access to technology and provide ways for people to use this technology to better their world. He also stated that an increase in access to wireless phones incrementally and exponentially increases that local economy. Perhaps this will become a new channel for non-profits to make a difference; providing access to wireless technology.

I know one thing is sure that MobileCause will continue to develop new and innovative ways to enable charities and non-profits to extend their work via the mobile phone.

Mobile Community

We hear a lot about "Community" and "Download" channels are the leading contributors to US network at the moment. With that in mind, I am often asked, “What opportunities do clients of MobileCause have to get into the mobile community game? “

Every tech channel that is getting any buzz today is connected to some form of community or social network. The other key-success driver is user generated experiences. MobileCause designs campaigns for its clients with this in mind. In fact the social networking reality has been part of developing the successful reach to each donor constituents and its beneficiaries, of every organization that is cause driven. Most people who donate to a cause or align themselves with a social issue are enrolled by a friend – their social network. Mobile integrates not only a communication tool but also an interactive media share tool. We design campaigns that allow our clients to maximize the use of the mobile phone to develop the reach of their call to action. We have also designed some unique applications that allow individuals to share their unique content within a cause driven forum.

Examples of these types of campaigns are competitions to develop Wallpapers and Mobile Video’s that are used to spread the word on a call to action. We are also creating solutions for end user mobile content development that integrates with a socially driven online profile.

I have so much more to say, but as my CMO often says, “who cares what we all think, we are here to deliver solutions to our clients that work for their unque business needs” so with that, let me know what topics or questions you want to hear from us on!

Connect and change the world!
-Hendre