charity

Over £12.9m raised for BBC Children in Need appeal through SMS donations

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft

Mobile payment specialist Fonix has announced that it processed over £12.9m worth of text donations for this year’s BBC Children in Need fundraiser.

Fonix said that the £12.9m that its payment platform processed surpassed the 2016 total of £7.64m and contributed to an overall total of £50.1m raised for BBC Children in Need on the night of the 2017 Appeal show.

Across a number of campaigns such as the Countryfile Ramble and the Rickshaw Challenge, as well as through a specially created fundraising campaign on the night of the show (Friday 17 November), mobile donations were gathered using a choice of three charity donation price points: £5, £10 and £20.

Karen Bass, Chief Operating Officer at BBC Children in Need said:

“We’ve been delighted by the response to this year’s Appeal and are grateful to everyone who has helped raise this amazing sum to support disadvantaged children and young people across the UK.  We want to make it as straightforward as possible for our supporters to make a donation and our ongoing relationship with Fonix has enabled us to achieve this through text-to-donate.”

Rob Weisz, Chief Executive of Fonix commented:

“When it comes to donating to charity, SMS has proven itself to be an ever-growing donation channel. Our solid working relationship over the last 3 years has really focused upon increasing the money raised from mobile, whilst making it as easy as possible for consumers to donate to this fantastic cause.

“For this year’s campaign, text-to-donate was promoted throughout the whole night to cater to growing demand.”

Children in Need is the BBC’s UK corporate charity, which raises money for disadvantaged children and young people around the country.

 

BBC Children in Need’s vision is that every child in the UK has a safe, happy and secure childhood and the chance to reach their potential.  The charity will realise this vision by supporting, promoting and publicising work that addresses the challenges that children and young people face and work that builds their skills and resilience.

 

BBC Children in Need is currently supporting over 2,600 projects in communities across the UK that are helping children and young people facing a range of disadvantages such as living in poverty, being disabled or ill, or experiencing distress, neglect or trauma.

 

Further information about BBC Children in Need can be found at bbc.co.uk/Pudsey 

 

aimm launches a new UK call to action for society lotteries

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft

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

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft

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

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft

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

Text-to-donate raises over £9.5 million in one day for Comic Relief’s 2017 appeal

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft

 

 

 

 

 

Mobile payments company Fonix has announced that it processed over £9.5m worth of text donations, on live night for the Red Nose Day fundraiser.

The live show took place on 24th March, and the £9.5m processed surpassed the 2015 total and helped contribute to the £19.5m total raised on the night.

This year saw the public dig deep to raise money for those in need across the world. Via text-to-donate, donations were gathered with on-screen promotions in £10 and for the first time, £20 amounts.

 On the night, the £20 price point alone generated a huge £5.4 million in mobile donations, out of the total £9.5 million raised via mobile – this was 57% of the total amount raised by mobile.

 

Campaign Manager at Comic Relief, Jules Thorne said:

 “Red Nose Day was a record-breaker for us; we saw an increase of almost £4 million of mobile donations from the 2015 campaign. We couldn’t have achieved this without Fonix’s expertise and our excellent collaborative approach to running the £20 price point.

 “Fonix understands the importance of making donations as simple and effortless as possible, which is why there was such a fantastic result for mobile donations on live night – people love being able to donate from their mobile devices.

 “Most importantly, it’s so encouraging that people are clearly willing to give more to charity – the £20 price point raised almost £1.3 million more than the £10 donation option.”

Rob Weisz, CEO of Fonix commented:

“ It’s great to be supporting Comic Relief in powering mobile donations for the third year in a row.  

 “The staggering amount raised really demonstrates the power of mobile in combination with emotive content. There was a peak in the campaign where our platform processed over 18,000 donations, all in the space of a minute. It’s a real credit to our great team who really went above and beyond in the months running up to event and on site at the BBC.”