mobile donations

Fonix powers mobile donations for Comic Relief for the 5th year running

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft

Mobile payments company Fonix has announced that this year it processed mobile donations for Comic Relief for the 5th year running, raising more than £10.6m via text-to-donate. Comic Relief’s Red Nose Day campaign is a biennial campaign hosted by the BBC, raising money to help people in the UK and across the world to live happier, healthier, safer lives.

This year’s campaign featured the live show, held on Friday 15th March, as well as a series of driver programmes. Each of these shows promoted text-to-donate, which allowed donors to donate via text at a range of price points: £5, £10, £20 and, for the first time for Comic Relief, £30 amounts for both the live show and the Kilimanjaro challenge during which 9 celebrities climbed Africa’s highest mountain. Donations were added to entrants’ mobile phone bills, allowing for a seamless, easy payment.

During the live show and the Kilimanjaro climb, the money raised from the £30 price point alone accounted for over 30% of the total raised via SMS.

Another new initiative for the 2019 campaign was the introduction of a competition which enabled viewers to donate or to opt-out of a donation whilst entering the competition. This was featured on BBC’s Saturday Kitchen and was the first time that the charity launched a competition to drive donations.

Entrants paid £5 to enter and be in with a chance of winning a unique dining experience, cooked for them by celebrity chefs. Using Fonix’s delayed donation technology, entrants had the opportunity to opt-out without being charged within 60 minutes of entering the competition.

Clare Charles, Account Director for Media and Charity at Fonix commented:

“We’re proud to have supported Comic Relief in powering mobile donations for the fifth year in a row.  We’ve come so far since 2014, as we now work with the charity to provide a total of four price points and we’re also constantly innovating to allow the charity to roll out new features. The delayed donation, for example, raised a tremendous £576,250 across four prize draws via text.”

Catherine Cottrell, Executive Director of Fundraising & Partnerships at Comic Relief added:

“It’s been exciting working with Fonix to offer new experiences and donation mechanisms to supporters and we are delighted that year’s campaign was such a success.”

Fonix’s innovation processes £12.9m for BBC Children in Need’s 2018 Appeal via text donations

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft

12th December 2018, London – Fonix, the mobile payments and messaging specialist, has announced today that it processed £12.9 million in mobile donations for BBC Children in Need.

BBC Children in Need is the BBC’s UK charity, raising money for disadvantaged children and young people around the country. Fonix has worked with the charity since 2014, providing a mobile payment mechanic which allows the public to donate via SMS, seamlessly charging the costs to their mobile phone bills.

This year, Fonix and BBC Children in Need collaborated to introduce the first ever £30 price point (alongside the traditional price points of £20, £10 and £5). This was introduced for the Children in Need Rocks concert with great success, and implemented on the live annual Appeal Show which aired on 16th November.

BBC Children in Need also ran multiple text-to-donate competitions for the first time, including the chance to see Bruce Springsteen on Broadway which featured on the Chris Evans Breakfast Show. A one-off voluntary donation of £10 was made to BBC Children in Need, but the public were able to opt out by replying CANCEL to their entry confirmation text within 60 minutes.

Clare Charles, Director of Media and Charity for Fonix, commented “We’re proud to have worked with BBC Children in Need this year. Since 2014 we’ve worked with the charity to refine and improve the mobile donation process.

“It’s clear that the public are willing to donate larger amounts via text-to-donate, and allowing them to do this by introducing the £30 price point has been great for raising money for such a good cause.”

Karen Bass, Chief Operating Officer at BBC Children in Need said “Mobile is such an important channel for maximising donations, helping us to raise as much money as possible to support disadvantaged children and young people around the UK. Donating by text is a quick and simple way for people to help change young lives. We’re grateful to Fonix for enabling this and to all of our generous supporters whose donations will go on to make such a difference.”

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.”