Mobile giving grows up

Computerworld - The earthquake that devastated Haiti nearly two years ago was followed by a massive relief effort that was supported in part by millions of dollars in donations by people who used mobile phones to text $5 or $10 to disaster aid groups.

Since the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake, mobile giving has moved beyond disaster aid. Now, people make all kinds of charitable donations and pledges through wireless smartphones and tablets -- and the donations don't have to be done by text, according to industry officials.

This holiday season, the Salvation Army is testing smartphones that accept a credit card swipe using technology from mobile payment startup Square. Users in four cities can make gifts via credit card and smartphone as an alternative to dropping coins in a red kettle, Salvation Army Major George Hood said.

Mobile giving has also gotten religion -- literally. Some churches in Los Angeles and parts of Arizona have recently tested systems that allow their members use cellphones to make their Sunday-morning offerings virtually, instead of dropping coins, bills or envelopes in a plate passed down the pew.

"The minister will say, 'Normally I tell you to turn off your cell phone in church, but now you can turn it on' to pledge," said Douglas Plank, the CEO of MobileCause, which has sponsored several mobile pledging tests with churches and temples.

"People forget to bring their checkbooks, so using the phone makes sense," Plank said. "The ministries that have tested it see a 10% to 15% bump in giving when they do it."

Plank expects mobile pledging to "really take off" once the software is perfected and becomes widely available. The mobile giving concept makes sense because smartphone adoption is exploding and smartphones and tablets can be used to make gifts via text message or over the mobile Web and through mobile applications, including social networking apps.

Many disaster aid campaigns have relied on contributions of fixed amounts, such as $5 or $10, via texting, with wireless carriers dropping the texting fees and collecting the donations to distribute to charities. But new tools make it possible to make more generous donations via an SMS message or a smartphone app linked to a credit card or other account, Plank said.

MobileCause, which has worked with 1,000 charities to set up mobile giving programs, hopes to take advantage of emerging technologies such as Near Field Communication (NFC) to quicken the pace of mobile payments, Plank said. NFC is behind the Google Wallet application, which is currently available on the Nexus S 4G smartphone from Sprint. Google Wallet allows a user to touch a payment terminal with an NFC-ready smartphone to transfer funds. NFC is also being tested by a carrier consortium called Isis, which offers a rival to Google Wallet.

"All that NFC stuff is really fabulous for nonprofits, as a useful tool to reach their constituents," Plank said. "But we don't want to replace traditional communications tools, so this is additive."

How "additive" the mobile giving technology tools become is the big question -- one that the Salvation Army and others will monitor closely.