SMS Donations by Burst SMS and Giveeasy

Burst SMS has partnered with Australian charity giving platform GiveEasy to deliver a solution that allows charities to collect donations instantly via texting a donation amount or keyword to a virtual mobile number.

Similar to texting a short code and billing directly to your phone account, with the GiveEasy SMS Donations Platform, the donator can be billed directly to their credit card, safely and securely.

If the recipient has a GiveEasy account, they will be sent a confirmation SMS to complete the donation, and emailed a receipt immediately to the email address on their account. It’s as easy as that.

If the giver does not have a GiveEasy account they will be sent a link to a single mobile optimized web page that has a 5-field form (bare minimum to issue a tax receipt). Once they complete it they will be fully registered and a tax receipt will be sent to their email address. The next time they donate the process will be instant.

It is a simple 2-step process to complete the donation, on the users’ mobile, without having to download any app.

Recent success

Carey Edwards, co-founder and director of Australian Working Dog Rescue said: “Having been involved in disaster management and charitable work for a considerable period of time, we were very keen to engage the concept of ‘txt 2 donate’ for AWDRI after the successes seen in Haiti for the American Red Cross. With mobile carriers being unable to assist us with this concept, despite many attempts to use their facilities, we were quick to take up the offer by Jeremy and GiveEasy on its introduction. “SMS giving is already showing its worth, and we only wish it had have been available to us earlier on. A great fundraising tool to engage the modern day mobile phone society.”

For Australian Working Dog Rescue, SMS donations from 2 facebook posts resulted in over 400 unique donations (some even donated twice!). SMS donations outnumbered PayPal donations more than 2 to 1.

Why we did it

The charity industry has been lobbying for years for Telco’s to allow premium short code donations, but as the Telco’s currently take up to 50% of all transactions on a premium short code. It is neither viable or in fact possible for charities to use this type of system.

These types of donation mechanisms have been used successfully in the USA and other countries for years to generate fast donations when people are at the height of their empathy.

This is the ultimate goal of a charity, to encourage a donation at the height of emotion. This is usually in the midst of a disaster, after they have read an article or watched an emotional TV commercial. Without a mechanism that can tap into the persons empathy instantly the donation is often lost.

This new method of receiving has evolved from a need for charities to maximize their marketing budgets and get instant donations from all touch points. Without the support of the Telco’s or Australian Government regulatory bodies surrounding short codes, this technology will fill a much needed gap without a huge startup cost or any financial hit on the donations by Telco’s or other intermediaries. There is no SMS charge to the donator other than a standard text message.