I wish I'd thought of this

I'm amazed by this "Text Haiti" campaign. Maybe it's because I sit in class and talk about how difficult it is for nonprofits to successfully fundraise...especially now. This isn't the first "mobile giving" campaign, but it's the first I've been aware of. It's so brilliant. I don't even have to get up, go find my purse, dig out my credit card, log on to a website, type in the numbers and hit submit. All I have to do is grab my phone, which is probably right next to me or in my pocket, send a text message, and boom! There it is on my bill.

Brilliant! I'm not kidding. I really think this is one of the smartest ideas I've ever seen.

So, I had to do some digging about the company behind this. The Text Haiti campaign is being run through a company called mGive. mGive has it's own 501(c)3 foundation attached to it, but I can't actually figure that part out. So, mGive charges charities a monthly fee between $399 and $1,499 to set up the technical stuff, negotiate with cell phone carriers, get the text number and word, and basically handle all of the logistics. mGive also takes between $0.30 - $0.35 plus 3.5% of each successful transaction.

Alright, so, a large organization like the Red Cross contracts with mGive. They pay $1500/month (you have to sign a 12 month contract) for the service. An earthquake happens in Haiti. $10 million dollars is raised by $10 text messages in less than a week. That's approximately one million people texting. mGive gets a little less than a dollar for each transaction. mGive just made almost a million dollars for itself in one week.

What's even better than this, is the money that goes to the charity, doesn't even come from mGive. It comes from the cell phone carriers who collect the money from the bill and pass it on to the charity. And you can't even really fault mGive for charging the charity for the service considering that they enabled the Red Cross to raise $10 million dollars in less than 7 days. That doesn't happen unless Bill Gates or Warren Buffett decides to give you money.

It's utterly brilliant.