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Creativity In Public Relations

 
Insights, innovations and inspirations - creating ideas with impact. Creativity, marketing, public relations and more. (Formerly known as Ryan's View)

Nicole Richie Launches Texting Fundraising Campaign

My friend Andrew over at thecoolhunter.net let me know of a very cool campaign that just launched in the U.S. with Nicole Richie and Joel Madden.  It seems like a no brainer, and not sure why no one has done it before - so thrilled to see its arrival as it can only inspire others to do something similar.  Here's how simple it is - you just text "child" to 90999 from your mobile phone (in the US) and you have just donated $5 to The Richie Maddden Children's Foundation - $4.50 goes to the foundation and $0.50 goes to the Mobile Giving Foundation to support more text donation programs.  The $5 charge shows up on your phone bill, that's it.

As I said before, this is such a simple way to make it easy for people to donate to charities, and really hope this new fundraising method spreads fast and furious to help non-profits around the world.  Bonus points to whoever thought of this creative fundraising tool.  Love it! 


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Published 22 September 2008 22:26 by Ryan Peal

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  • Stephen Joos said:

    Hey Ryan,  Great post!

    I am with mGive, the company powering the Richie Madden Foundation's text message donations.  This campaign has been extremely successful and we hope many other organizations duplicate the effective way they have promoted this!

    September 22, 2008 21:32
  • Nicole Richie Celebrity Gossip | Nicole Richie Launches Texting Fundraising Campaign said:

    September 23, 2008 06:36
  • Michael said:

    Hi Ryan,

    The reason that you haven't seen more programs like these is that the capability is brand new. Mobile Fundraising has just been opened up by the carriers.

    In the future we are going to see a lot of mobile fundraising as well as some very engaging campaigns over SMS. You can check out a few things that have been done - http://mcommons.com/showcase/ -  and some stuff going on currently - mobilecommons.tumblr.com

    If you ever want to talk about what is going on next in this space, send me an email and we can chat. michael @ [mcommons]

    cheers-

    September 23, 2008 15:23
  • Ken Whitmer said:

    I call shenanigans on those showcase quotes.

    September 23, 2008 18:44
  • Will Corso said:

    Double shenanigans!

    September 23, 2008 18:48
  • Melissa Russell said:

    What a great campaign - definitely hope more celebrities and organisations get behind things like this.  

    September 23, 2008 23:22
  • Louisa Galligani said:

    This seems like a great way for charities to benefit from people who want to give but maybe just want it to be easier to do so.  

    September 23, 2008 23:26
  • Kelvin Lee said:

    Texting is second nature to so many of us. It's great to that see that charities can benefit from such a simple cost effective piece of technology. I hope it catches on.

    September 23, 2008 23:34
  • Julian Cole said:

    This is awesome and takes all the difficulty of previous fundraising, I would hope that this was part of a larger IMC campaign because it seems a little weak by itself.

    September 24, 2008 06:25
  • Stephen Joos said:

    Julian- I definitely agree.  Mobile Giving campaigns are best integrated into a larger plan.  There are many mobile tools out there to expand beyond just mobile donations- we specifically offer tools to capture email addresses associated with mobile numbers, segmenting via zip code, a raffle style tool, ringtones and other mobile content.

    We have found that concerts are extremely effective, one of our clients, Keep a Child Alive raised over $40k during Alicia Keys' concert series.

    We are preparing a case study on The Richie Madden Foundation.  If you would like a copy send an email to sjoos [at] mgive.com

    September 24, 2008 16:46
  • Harry said:

    FYI - Mobile fundraising is a common thing in India & Nepal  !!!

    September 26, 2008 10:37
  • Owen Gazel said:

    I think this campaign is incredible. Living in a society that has such a big emphasis on celebrity culture and technology, this was a great way to incoporate both elements. Nicole Richie along with her freind Paris Hilton have been instrumental in the cell phone market, they are constantly being photographed on their top of the line cell phones texting and browsing the net as they walk down Sunset Blvd. This also makes donating to charities easy, by simply texting a number your donation is processed. I think this form of fundraising will be a bench mark for future charities.

    September 30, 2008 17:19
  • Nicole Richie Launches Texting Fundraising Campaign | mGive Blog said:

    October 1, 2008 23:49
  • Nicole Richie Celebrity Gossip | Creativity In Public Relations : Nicole Richie Launches Texting … said:

    November 6, 2008 07:14

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