Fonix to power mobile donations across all of Cancer Research UK’s fundraising activity

Fonix, the mobile messaging and payments specialist, today announced that it has extended its partnership with Cancer Research UK, one of the world’s leading cancer charities dedicated to saving lives through research.

Fonix first started working with Cancer Research UK in 2017 for the Stand Up To Cancer campaign, a joint national fundraiser from Cancer Research UK and Channel 4, seamlessly enabling mobile donations and Gift Aid. This continued in 2018 with Fonix successfully processing SMS donations to Stand Up To Cancer made during the live show on Channel 4 – significantly contributing to the record £24.6 million raised on the night.

This extended contract will see Fonix power the mobile donations across all of the charity’s fundraising activity, including Race for Life, other challenge events such as Shine Night Walk and the Great Hike and also as a direct response to indoor and outdoor print advertising.

Kathryn Toner, Head of Individual Giving at Cancer Research UK said: “With a proven track record across all high-profile charity campaigns, Fonix’s experience and expertise in the charity sector speaks for itself.

Text to donate is a great fundraising mechanic for the charity as it is a quick and easy way that the public can donate to the charity and help us bring forward the day when all cancers are cured. Cancer Research UK receives no government funding for its life saving research and relies entirely on the generosity of the public. We’re always looking for new ways that the public can donate to the charity such as raising donations via competitions.”

Clare Charles, account director at Fonix added: “It’s been such a privilege to work with Cancer Research UK over the past two years and in this time we’ve seen how our shared passion for innovation has positively impacted the amount raised for such a good cause.

The extended partnership was the obvious next step for Fonix and Cancer Research UK, and we look forward to driving mobile donations and seeing the results across all fundraising activity.”

aimm launches a new UK call to action for society lotteries

26Sept 2017, Farnham.

The Association for Interactive Media and Micropayments (aimm), launched a major new call to action initiative for society lotteries on 22nd September 2017.  This exciting new channel could transform results for society lotteries if it performs anything like it has for charities.

Society lotteries are lotteries and raffles run for charitable benefit, licensed through the Gambling Commission or via local authority licenses. These lotteries and raffles provide a vital income source for charities.

Text short codes, which are 5 digit number starting with a 70 prefix, have been used with phenomenal success by charities over the last three years.  Short codes generate over £115m in donations per annum.  In many cases texting to a short code has become the most popular call to action for donors due to ease and simplicity. They have shown to generate incremental funds rather than cannibalisation from other, more mature, methods to donate such as online or by phone to a call centre. It also attracts a new, often younger, audience.

aimm has been working across its members to develop a similar facility for society lotteries. It works in the following way:  The society lottery manager or charity uses an advertising campaign to draw attention to its lottery with the call to action being text a word (such as WIN) to a short number starting 72 (e.g. 72123).  The advertising will include the price of the entry and the lottery terms.  A consumer sees the campaign and texts their entry using their mobile phone to gain entry into a lottery or raffle.  The lottery manager or charity uses its procedures to check the consumer is over 16 and then the cost of entry is charged to the consumer’s mobile phone bill.  It’s simple, quick and immediate. An efficient communication channel is now established with the consumer for follow up in-service messages and winner information.

With the near 100% penetration of text capable phones in the UK every British consumer over 16 can participate in a society lottery or raffle.  No other engagement and payment product has this penetration.

The launch conference was kindly hosted by Cancer Research UK and sponsored by Dynamic Mobile Billing (both of whom are aimm members), whose sponsorship enabled complimentary tickets to be given to those charities and lottery managers who wished to join us. It was extremely well attended by external lottery managers (ELM’s) and charities with excellent presentations from charity Oxfam, campaign enabler Cymba, Charity Funding and Promoter (CFP), Global’s Make some Noise, regulator Phone-paid Services Authority, payment intermediary Dynamic Mobile Billing (DMB) and mobile network operator EE.

Kevin Dawson, CEO of DMB said “It was great to talk to an audience who were clearly so excited about this new opportunity.  Based on our successful experiences in operating mobile payment lotteries in others markets across the globe, I am totally confident the UK market will be as successful for society lotteries as it has been for charities and giving campaigns, so DMB hope to work with the markets key players and share our experiences to deliver a mutually rewarding commercial partnership. The UK is getting more and more familiar with short code based services. It is positive for the whole ‘charge to mobile’ industry, opening up a new market for everyone up and down the value chain whilst being great for consumers who want to participate. It’s a win-win-win.”

The event showed that there were differing levels of understanding across the society lottery managers about how the text based call to action and mobile payment mechanism could be made to work. It is clear there is a need for enhanced education across this market.  aimm will be working closely with the Gambling Commission and the PSA on behalf of members to ensure that all regulatory requirements are covered.

Overall it is great to see a growth opportunity where the potential is being recognised. There is enormous enthusiasm across the board.  One lottery manager stated “This initiative has been the most exciting development in this industry since the postage stamp!” It is likely society lotteries will be trialling the new short code range before Christmas.

 

Society Lottery Conference a success

The UK mobile operators in conjunction with aimm have created a new shortcode range specifically for society lotteries, taking advantage of the VAT exempt status, to provide society lottery managers and charities who run their own lotteries and raffles with an excellent marketing tool that appeals to the 98% enabled UK population.

On Friday 22nd September we ran our first Society Lottery Conference in London at the premises of Cancer Research UK.

Offered to charities and society lotteries this event  looked at the new 72xxx short-code range and how it could be implement within their business’. With a range of industry specialist speakers, the day focused on  increasing understanding and knowledge of the benefits of using short codes, and the opportunities that could be created from this new range, all supported by case studies and regulatory guidance.

The greatest call to action for any marketing campaign is getting mobile consumers to text a message to a short 5 digit number known as a short code. Charities using short code donations have found this call to action to generate over £140million per annum without cannibalising their other donation channels.

With a full house, and great feedback, this this event was well received, and is such an important and popular topic that it is likely that we may run this again in the future.

We would like to thank all our speakers: Oxfam, Global Radio, EE, Dynamic Mobile Billing, EE, Cymba and PSA. To learn more about our speakers see their bio’s here: aimm Society Lottery Speaker bios 22September2017

We would like to thank our sponsor Dynamic Mobile Billing who’s support helped make this conference possible.

 

 

Fonix to provide the mobile payment mechanic for Stand Up to Cancer

On the 21st September Fonix announced that it will be providing the mobile payment mechanic for Stand Up To Cancer 2017. Stand Up To Cancer is a joint national fundraising campaign from Cancer Research UK and Channel 4, which funds game-changing research to ultimately save more lives.

Fonix will be working with Cancer Research UK to provide a text-to-donate platform, enabling donors to send a text message to donate either £5, £10 or £20, which will be charged to their mobile phone bills.

Fonix will be launching the mechanic with Stand Up To Cancer’s Great Canoe Challenge on Monday 25th September. The challenge will see a handful of inspiring supporters, who have all been affected by cancer, row five marathons in five days. The team will set off from Chester on Monday 25 September, and will finish the challenge at the Alberts Docks in Liverpool on Friday 29 September. The team will be accompanied by some famous faces each day to help them reach the finish line.

Stand Up To Cancer has also partnered with Fonix’s client Bauer Media to broadcast radio shows across their portfolio of stations in the UK, and both the on-screen and radio programmes will be supported by Fonix’s text-to-donate mechanic.

Clare Charles, Client Director for Media and Charity at Fonix, said “We love working with forward-thinking charities that value the importance of mobile within the sector. Cancer Research UK clearly recognises the growing consumer trust in mobile payments and the simplicity of text-to-donate. We’re looking forward to seeing the results and the difference that it makes to the Stand Up To Cancer campaign.”

Ana Maria Flores, Senior Programme Manager for Stand Up To Cancer at Cancer Research UK, said: “We know that our supporters are increasingly keen to give via their mobile phones. In 2016, 80% of donations to Stand Up To Cancer were text donations. It is important to us that we use the most reliable, robust and user-friendly mechanic possible to cater to this growing demand. Fonix’s experience within the charity sector and continual success with text-to-donate made the partnership an obvious choice.”

 

 

 

About Stand Up To Cancer (UK)
  •       Stand Up To Cancer is a joint national fundraising campaign from Cancer Research UK and Channel 4
  •       The campaign returns this autumn with a variety of fundraising activities and a series of special programming on Channel 4
  •       Launched in the UK in 2012, Stand Up To Cancer funds game-changing research that accelerates new cancer treatments and tests to UK patients, and across the world, to ultimately save more lives
  •       More than £38 million has been raised in the UK to date and over 40 trials and projects have been funded, that will involve more than 10,000 cancer patients
  •       Research projects include the development of the ‘chemo-package’ to deliver treatment at the best time for the patient; testing arsenic as a weapon to make cancer self-cannibalise; using viruses to seek and destroy cancer cells while boosting the immune system, and much, much more!
  •       Stars such as Naomi Campbell, Noel Gallagher, Nicole Scherzinger, Pharrell Williams, Tom Hardy, Gillian Anderson, Britney Spears, Idris Elba, Andy Murray, Bradley Cooper, Taylor Swift, Martin Freeman, Jamie Oliver, Kathy Burke, Miranda Hart, Paul O’Grady, Richard Ayoade, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jack O’Connell, Lily James, Rosamund Pike, Sophie Turner, Stephen Graham, Toby Jones and Will Poulter are just some of the talent who have supported Stand Up To Cancer

 

 

To find out more about fundraising activities visit Standuptocancer.org.uk or channel4.co.uk/SU2C or follow them on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram