Fonix and JustGiving partner

Fonix and JustGiving partner to introduce SMS donations to thousands of UK charities

London, September 18, 2024

Fonix, a leading mobile payments and interactive services company, is pleased to announce a strategic partnership with JustGiving, the UK’s leading online fundraising platform. This collaboration is set to transform charitable giving by integrating seamless SMS donation technology, making it easier than ever for individuals to support causes they care about.

Through this partnership, Fonix and JustGiving are enabling donors to support their favourite charities through quick and secure mobile payments.  Leveraging Fonix’s cutting-edge technology, JustGiving users can now make donations directly via SMS, offering a fast and convenient way to contribute, whether at home or on the go, no credit or debit card required.

This partnership also empowers charities with a powerful new tool to engage with supporters and drive donations. By expanding payment options to include SMS donations, charities can reach a wider audience and significantly enhance the impact of their fundraising efforts.

According to the Annual Market Review for Phone-Paid Services 2023–2024, £38.6 million was raised through phone-paid services in the UK during the last financial year. Since 2014, Fonix has processed £333 million in SMS donations. Offering this capability to JustGiving’s 20,000 UK charity partners represents an opportunity to make a marked increase to these figures.

Oliver Shaw-Latimer, Senior Director of Payments and Innovation at JustGiving, commented: “We’re pleased to partner with Fonix to enhance the ways our charities can accept donations in the UK. Their market-leading messaging and payment technology will enable us to optimise a key aspect of charity fundraising and audience engagement. JustGiving is committed to making giving as easy and accessible as possible. This partnership allows us to offer our users a fast, secure, and convenient way to donate through their mobile devices, helping us continue our mission of connecting people with the causes they care about.”

Rob Weisz, CEO of Fonix, added: “JustGiving has been a pivotal force in charity fundraising for over two decades and remains one of the most recognised platforms for both charities and donors. This partnership will allow JustGiving’s charity partners to leverage Fonix’s mobile payment technology to offer text donations in the UK – a crucial donation method given its simplicity and widespread use. Having raised over £330 million through text donations to date, we’re excited to continue supporting fantastic causes alongside JustGiving.”

This partnership comes at a perfect time, with JustGiving announcing a record £550 million raised for nearly 20,000 UK charities through their platform in 2023, and more than 950,000 JustGiving fundraising pages set up – a 9% increase from 2022.

Fonix has a proven track record with charities of all sizes across the UK, including Comic Relief, Children in Need, Socceraid, Stand Up To Cancer, and many more. Their text donation technology enables charities to reach a broader audience, with some organisations seeing as much as 80% of donations coming through mobile. Fonix’s innovative techniques maximise donations, value, and Gift Aid declarations.

Did you catch aimm’s Panel session today?

 

This morning at the Carrier Billing & Mobile Payments Summit, Joanna Cox of aimm Chaired a panel to discuss: UK Regulation: Are you Ready for the Biggest Change in a Decade? We were be joined by David Ashman of MCP Insights Ltd, Victoria Hull, from Dynamic Mobile Billing, Peter Garside of EE and Léon Dijksman from Sam Media.

This session delved into the new regulatory model that is on the horizon in the UK. With Ofcom in the process of transitioning into regulatory power over the mobile and interactive media space, this will create change across the regulatory landscape for our industry.

aimm has been working hard to not only advise and guide members about this change with workshops, but regularly liaise with both the regulators about this transition. This knowledge sharing allows for the opportunity for growth in this market to continue while maximising consumer protection.

With updates from Ofcom expected in the next couple of months; aimm is gearing up for the next round of member meetings to share our knowledge and best practice, so that all our members can enter this next regulatory phase compliant.

During the Panel session the team also discussed best practice for effective Responsive Display Ad Marketing. This is a hot topic right now for many businesses, and the focus for one of our new Working Groups at aimm.

If you are not yet a member of aimm, and want to find out more about what is required to be compliant, as well as find new opportunities for growth, get in touch about membership and joining our mailing list for our updates.

New Vacancies from Global in our Vacancies board

We have two new vacancies for Interactive Services Executives that are now available for application at Global on our Vacancies Board.

To see the full details for both these roles please visit the Vacancies Board for details and a link to apply.

These close on the 10th January 2022.

 

Largest Ever Survey of Digital Subscriptions – 78% Don’t Want Fixed-Term Subscriptions

90% of consumers state the ending of a subscription to a service should be entirely their decision.

5th August 2021: Research of 1,000 consumers, commissioned by aimm in June 2021, observed that 93% described the process of signing up to a subscription to be clear and transparent. Just 1.5% of consumers found themselves subscribed to a service that they didn’t want. Unsurprisingly then, 90% of consumers felt that they alone should be responsible for choosing when to end their subscription, and 78% don’t want to sign up for a fixed term.

The research found that when it comes to digital subscriptions, regulation should guide consumer behaviour, but not be an imposition.

The current regulations already require robust consent, so any new regulations that impose stricter criteria will automatically discriminate against subscribers who are passively happy. The natural suspicion of consumers to click on links to renew a subscription means that services, including charity fundraising, will suffer, should this become a requirement.

The recommendation from the research, which asked about consumers’ preferences regarding reminder messages and length of subscriptions, is that for monthly subscription services a reminder message should be sent every month for the first 3 months, then once a quarter following that, with an additional service summary sent annually.

Joanna Cox, General Manager at aimm said “We wanted to ask consumers what they wanted when it came to digital subscriptions. The results of the research overwhelming show that the current regulations provide enough security for consumers and if anything they’d like to be contacted even less than they currently are.”

Over 97% of consumers felt that an annual service summary, that was for information only and did not need to be acted on, would be beneficial. Consumers now think of digital subscriptions as long term and not in 12-monthly timeframes. This is backed up by the fact that 75% have subscribed to a service or donation for over a year.

“We want to make sure that consumers are protected and feel safe using mobile subscriptions to sign up to services or donate to charity,” said Neil Johnson, Chairman at aimm. “However, we also want to make sure that we don’t create regulations that are too stringent, that actively dissuade consumers from signing up to quality subscription services, or mean that they are inadvertently cancelled. Too much unnecessary regulation risks damaging the consumer experience and the subscription business model; a model which creates a convenient way for users to pay for services they enjoy.”

 

Details about the research

Research was commissioned via Mobile Squared during June 2021. This research asked a panel of 1,000 unbiased people about their experiences, with the expectation that this would provide a meaningful insight into the world of those with a passive happiness with the service they receive. The panel was evenly split by age group, gender and location, to ensure a fair cross-representation of society.

Whilst recognising there have been challenges with phone-paid subscriptions in the past, these have now largely been resolved. This research addressed the experiences of those with a passive happiness with their subscription; the silent majority of people now using phone-paid subscriptions without concern.

Fonix share their Top 10 takeaways from yesterday’s breakfast event: ‘Pick ‘N’ Mix TV.

Joanna Cox, General Manager at aimm, opened the event by explaining how TV habits have changed: the days of having only three channels seem a lifetime away now that we’re so spoilt for choice. She talked about how the payment methods offered for content consumption need to be as frictionless as possible — more purchases are being made than ever before.

Joanna was joined by EE, BT Sport and Twitter amongst others to talk about the ‘ Payment Mix for OTT Audiences’.

You can read the full Top 10 List from Fonix’s Blog.