Mobile + Video for Nonprofits: Two Big Trends That Will Change The Face Public Engagement—Nonprofit White Paper #4

Posted: December 19th, 2011 | Author: MobileCause | Filed under: White Papers | Tags: mobile ready nonprofit website, mobile video communication, mobile video fundraising, mobile video research, mobile video trends, mobile video websites, mobile website statistics, nonprofit mobile videos | Comments Off

Nonprofit White Paper #4—The Face of Public Engagement

MobileCause/Common Knowledge Whitepaper #4
by Doug Plank, MobileCause CEO & Jeff Patrick, Common Knowledge President
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I. Introduction: Mobile + Video

The rapid ascent of mobile technology and online video content are poised to fundamentally reshape the way nonprofits use the Internet to raise funds, recruit activists, and attract new members. How quickly and adeptly the nonprofit community embraces these technologies will go a long way toward determining their success. In a nutshell, the nonprofit organizations that mobilize their digital assets and outbound activities and incorporate video into their content mix will enjoy a distinct competitive advantage over those who cling to increasingly (and rapidly) outdated methodologies. In this paper we look at the meteoric, parallel rises of these twin forces, their likely impact on public behavior, and offer some Best Practices advice for putting these technologies to work for your nonprofit organization.

Little Boxes, Big Content

In the span of just a few years the devices through which the public accesses the Internet have shrunk significantly even as the volume of data they are able to create and share across the Internet has exploded.

Through smartphone technology not only has the web gone mobile but so too has the authorship behind so much of its content. Today hundreds of millions possess the ability to almost instantly share exabytes of text, image and video-based content across the largest communities the world has ever known from virtually any location on the planet. And these two developments have unfolded at rates much faster than even their most ardent supporters could have anticipated, presenting new challenges – and opportunities – for nonprofits of every kind. Let’s start with some numbers.

Mobile is Global

As we have noted in previous white papers, mobile technology has taken the world by storm. By the middle of this decade Cisco Systems – a key architect of the digital backbone upon which all of this change is taking place – predicts there will be one mobile device for every man, woman and child on Earth, for a total of more than 7.1 billion units.

• Of those mobile devices, in the U.S. 40% are now smartphones.
• Global smartphone sales are expected to reach nearly 1 billion by 2015.
• Gartner expects nearly 100 million smartphones to be sold this year, making it the highest-selling consumer electronic device.
  
• Morgan Stanley projects U.S. smartphone sales to exceed those of PCs (for business and home) in 2012.
  
• In 2010 Nielsen reports that 31% of mobile phone owners had a smartphone; that figure is expected to exceed 50% by the end of 2011
  
• Cisco reports that mobile traffic from tablet devices such as Apple’s iPad is expected to grow 205-fold, the highest growth rate of any device category.
  
• Global smartphone sales reached 302.6 million units in 2010, up 74% from 2009,5 and the company expects sales to reach 500 million units in 2012.
  
• Meanwhile, smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices will account for 87% of all global mobile traffic by 2015.
  
• In four years Cisco says tablets will produce more Internet traffic than the entire Internet today.

But it’s not just the number of mobile devices that inspires awe; it’s the volumes of data they are consuming. By 2015 Cisco is forecasting mobile

data traffic to reach 75 exabytes per year, an astounding 26-fold increase over today’s numbers.8 And for purposes of this paper, perhaps the most telling statistic of all is this: By the end of this decade, at least one billion people will access the Internet solely via their smartphones and tablets. The consequences of these changes are enormous, but before we get to that, let’s also consider for a moment the impetus behind that increased data throughput: video.

The Medium of Choice

Bibliophiles may not be happy to hear this, but video has fast-become the world’s most popular medium and nowhere is this more evident than online, where by 2013 at least 90% of all Internet traffic is expected to be video-based. This is not to say that text and graphical content will altogether disappear; merely that the lion’s share of Web-based content is far more likely to be watched than read. Don’t believe it? Consider that:

• Facebook, which already ranks as the largest photo sharing site in the U.S., recently passed Yahoo, Microsoft and Viacom to become the third-largest video-sharing site.
  
• With 750 million members, Facebook soon is expected to give Vimeo and perhaps even YouTube a run for all those eyeballs.12 Each month more than 50 million people watch a video on Facebook.
  
• For September 2011, the latest month for which such data is available, 182 million U.S. Internet users watched 39.8 billion videos. That’s more than 85% of the entire Internet audience, for an average of 19.5 hours per viewer.

And if all that isn’t enough, note that Google is now integrating video into the first page of search results for many keyword search terms. This means that for your organization and/or its mission “it is often easier to land on the first page of search results through video than by trying to get your page ranked higher.”

II. Best Practices and Next Steps

So if the public is embracing mobile technology and video is their content of choice, the marching orders for the nonprofit industry seem fairly straightforward: modify existing digital assets, strategies and tactics to incorporate both mobile technology and video content. But as with the adoption of any new technology, let alone two of them, there is a right and wrong way of implementing them. In this next section we examine some steps your organization can take to make the
very most of these historic changes.

Mobile Technology

As the numbers in this document and our previous white papers attest, mobile technology is not coming – it is here. Meaning nonprofits would be wise to “mobilize” their operations as soon as possible if they are to remain conversant with their target audiences. The following steps can get your organization mobile quickly, efficiently and with a minimum of pain.

Act! Go Mobile

The first lesson is also the most obvious and perhaps most important: Act. Now. As noted in a previous white paper, 15 millions of individuals today only access the Web via their mobile device. Which means if your website isn’t mobileready, it may as well not exist.

Mobilize Your Website

We cannot overstate the importance of this step: If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, your organization doesn’t exist to the majority of the Web-viewing public. Incredibly, a recent NTEN survey showed that only 16% of nonprofits expect to have a mobile-ready website in place in 2011 and only 19% anticipate having a smartphone application. This despite the fact an overwhelming majority of donors, activists, volunteers, members and other constituents are rapidly and definitively migrating to mobile platforms. The old maxim about only having one chance to make a good first impression fits nicely here. Imagine launching a large fundraising campaign, sending out an e-newsletter, or suddenly being the recipient of some welcome media attention. Suddenly large numbers of individuals like the ones cited in the statistics above point their smartphones to your URL. What comes across their screen is a garbled, indecipherable, unformatted mess. Not only have you lost a golden opportunity or perhaps invested a lot of time, effort and money, but that smartphone user is forevermore going to regard any future correspondence from you with suspicion (if he or she doesn’t promptly unsubscribe). The bottom line: If your website isn’t easily accessible via mobile devices, you are increasingly invisible to millions of people.

Mobilize Your Marketing

In the same way a non-mobile website hurts an organization’s reputation, so too is the nonprofit that fails to tailor its marketing and other outreach efforts for those same mobile devices. With a growing majority of people adopting mobile technology, it stands to reason that organizations interested in communicating with them must repackage their messages for those platforms. Consider that:

• Text messaging campaigns increasingly are outpacing their direct response and email alternatives, boosting not just response but also conversion rates.
  

• While 72% of individuals send and receive text messages on their mobile phones, only 34% send and receive email this way.
• At least 90% of all email communication is considered spam while only 1% of text messaging falls into that category.
• Fewer than 22% of emails are opened compared to 98% of text messages.

What all of this means is that your target audience not only is transitioning to mobile applications but, logically, is also adopting mobile-inspired behavior. For example, as the aforementioned data show, an email invitation to a smartphone is less likely to be read, shared, or acted upon and is more likely to be dismissed as spam. Similarly, Facebook is the world’s third most popular video-sharing site for the simple reason video is far easier to share than other forms of communication. In short, if your messaging and other tactics aren’t mobile, they aren’t going anywhere.

To Do List

There are a number of steps a nonprofit can take to “mobilize” its operations. First and perhaps most important is to make an organization-wide commitment
to embrace mobile technology; to, in essence, think and act mobile. Second, we recommend finding a Web vendor with a proven track record of helping nonprofits repackage their digital assets and outbound offerings for mobile platforms. An NPO-focused vendor is preferable because tailoring mobile technology to a nonprofit is considerably different than for a company that, for example, sells shoes.

Other important steps include:

• Mobilize your constituent data by including mobile number requests along all ‘touch points’ including contact forms, surveys, event registrations, job boards, polls, and more.
  
• Keep your initial mobile communications short and to the point. Build trust, confidence, and connection before you ask.
  
• Mobile opportunities abound, but so too do potential pitfalls. Research and interview mobile service providers and mobile giving solutions to determine their: viability and experience with nonprofits; openness and transparency; and their relationships with wireless carriers.
  
• Leverage mobile technology in the ways that it is unique. Real-time fundraisers, polls, surveys, pledge drives, polls and more can represent a real opportunity to your organization and its various constituencies.

Video Content

As mobile technology has taken the world by storm so too has video become the content medium of choice for the Internet public. Every day, for example, YouTube serves up more than 3 billion videos – and that’s just YouTube. Similarly, the second biggest search engine today isn’t Yahoo or Bing, it’s YouTube, so if you want your story to be found, YouTube is a great place to position it.

Cisco estimates a 35-fold increase in mobile video volume by 2015, the highest growth rate of any data application. Or as Suraj Shetty, Cisco’s VP of worldwide service provider marketing, says, “The seemingly endless bevy of new mobile devices, combined with greater mobile broadband access, more content, and applications of all types – especially video – are the key catalysts driving this remarkable growth.”

Why is video so popular? In a nutshell, video is the next best thing to being there in person. Chris Anderson, who not only runs the wildly popular TED video series but whose own TED talks have racked up more than a half-billion views, puts it quite simply: “Our brains are exquisitely wired for video.”

What he means is that for thousands of years the human brain evolved on face-to-face communication. All those synaptic connections weren’t created just from listening but also from reading visual cues, body language, voice intonation, and so on.

Along comes Gutenberg and his printing press and we begin a new form of solo communication: reading. As near to the real thing as possible, video once again is delivering that face-to-face communication upon which the brain has been molded.

“What Gutenberg did for writing,” says Anderson, “online video can now do for face-to-face communication.” Or as JustMeans’ Tiffany Finley points out: “With nearly 65% of the population being visual learners … videos have blown open the doors of communication.” Which is to say, that even as the nonprofit industry gears its digital aspirations toward mobile applications and tactics, it also should be incorporating video strategies into that mobile mix – especially for constituent
engagement, cultivation and fundraising.

Some additional numbers that should impress:

• Of the 2 billion people who are online, 70% routinely watch videos
  
• By 2013 more 90% of Internet traffic will be video-based (in 2010 it was 30%)
  
• The addition of a video increases landing page conversions by 55%
  
• The presence of an optimized video makes top page search results 53 times more likely
  
• Incorporating a video into an e-newsletter nearly doubles click-thru rates
  
• People will remain on a website at least two additional two minutes after viewing a video

To Do List

As already noted, the idea of using video can be intimidating to many organizations, particularly if they’ve never produced or published one. Many still suffer from the misguided notion that videos are big production numbers with costly budgets requiring professional camera crews. This is no longer true. Consider, for example, that according to many of video professionals a central ingredient to any successful video is authenticity – something more apt to originate in a mission-driven nonprofit than a corporation. Along with authenticity, here are some key video Best Practices nonprofit organizations should consider in adding video to their marketing mix.

• Incorporate video into your content strategy and campaigns. One recent study claims that “a number of nonprofits have found that including a video as a part of a fundraising campaign can provide a boost to the appeal. Others are creating videos to educate advocates or clients.”
  
• Invite supporters to shoot and submit their own video and share with friends. If peer-to-peer fundraising is the most successful form of fundraising, imagine the impact of video-based peer-to-peer appeals. As Michael Hoffman and Danny Alpert recently told NTEN, “building internal capacity to develop video assets has become a core need for nonprofit organizations.”
  
• Technically speaking, quality video cameras are ubiquitous, even in mobile devices. But sound and lighting are the wildcards. Make sure your subject(s) can be heard and clearly seen.
  
• Keep it short. Videos of 1.5 – 2 minutes are more likely to be watched than longer ones.
  
• Content is still king. Repurpose existing content or find collaborators (anyone with a video camera or mobile phone is a candidate). As Christy Wiles, marketing manager for PhotoPhilanthropy says, “Nonprofits often believe they can’t afford excellent visual content, that it isn’t worth the effort, but there are many photographers and media producers looking to collaborate with nonprofits.”
  
• Be approachable. You’re using video to make your organization more ‘human’ so be authentic, use humor, etc.
  
• Create a YouTube channel and ensure that every video is optimized. Use embed codes to post those videos to your site, to e-newsletters, Facebook and elsewhere.
  
• Track metrics such as views, comments, shares (via email forwarding), site analytics (where do visitors go from there), abandon rates and locations (when did they stop watching and at what point in the video).

Conclusion

The verdict is in and its findings are incontrovertible. Mobile technology has taken the planet by storm and very soon a billion or more individuals will be using smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices to access the Internet and, by extension, your organization. These individuals will be spending a significant portion of their online time using those mobile devices to watch and share videos, at least some of which will be about organizations just like yours. Forward-looking nonprofits recognize the gravity of these trends and are making plans to:

• Mobilize existing Web assets
  
• Tailor future strategies and tactics to mobile platforms
  
• Capture mobile data on existing and future supporters
  
• Incorporate video into their content, solicitation, and marketing plans

By taking these steps these organizations guarantee that they will be part of the conversation as it shifts toward mobile, video technologies.

Learn more about MobileCause fundraising and engagement tools for nonprofits.

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Mobile Giving: The Changing Face of Modern Philanthropy— Nonprofit White Paper #3

Posted: September 29th, 2011 | Author: MobileCause | Filed under: White Papers | Tags: berry family, justin bieber, mobile giving, modern philanthropy, nonprofit, show your hearts, text-to-give, white paper | Comments Off

Nonprofit White Paper #3—Show Your Hearts Case Study

Author: Doug Plank, MobileCause Chairman/CEO
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Research Summary

While the capacity of mobile technology to support fundraising operations for high-profile disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake has more or less been established, many nonprofits have been less clear on its applicability to the more localized initiatives in which they so often are engaged. But as will be demonstrated in this paper, mobile technology shows every sign not simply of augmenting the existing philanthropic activities of the nonprofit world but, in many instances, altogether supplanting them. After all, only mobile offers nonprofit organizations the combination of:

1—Omnipresence in the lives of virtually every American.
2—A passionate embrace by younger and older generations.
3—Unique synergies with social media.
4—The ability to immediately satisfy the ‘donor impulse’ of those moved to help.

The Tragic Case of the Berry Family

It is an almost unimaginable nightmare. A family of five happily returning from vacation in their minivan; suddenly an oncoming SUV veers directly into their path; the resulting head-on collision is catastrophic.

Inside the minivan eight-year-old Aaron and his nine- year-old brother, Peter, suffer critical spinal injuries that very likely will leave them permanently para- lyzed. Their six-year-old sister, Willa, is seriously injured with multiple broken bones. In the front seats, parents Joshua and Robin Berry have not survived.

While fatal automobile accidents are an all-too common occurrence in our society, the particulars of the Berry family accident – two paralyzed children combined with deceased parents who cannot be there to care for them – make it inexpressibly sad to all who are exposed to the story.

In the wake of the crash, members of the extended Berry family immediately volunteered a home for the surviving children. But what became inescapably clear was the long-term – perhaps even lifelong – medical and therapeutic care that the boys would require.

In most families the incapacitation of a single child can be economically devastating, even with two living, working parents able to provide care for the child. Butwith both parents gone and two boys suffering critical injuries, the challenges faced by this extended family are incredibly daunting.

Add to all of this the immense emotional and psychological toll facing all three children and it is clear that the extended Berry family can use all the help they can get.

Paving the Way for Others to Help

For obvious reasons the story became something of a local media sensation. Immediate family and friends, the local Jewish community with which the Berry family worshipped, and many of their hometown resi- dents of Houston, Texas, at-large all found themselves caught up in the family’s struggles and offered to help. In response the family established the Joshua and
Robin Berry Children’s Trust.

But given the enormous long-term costs associated with the children’s care and the apparent willingness of complete strangers to help, the family and a close network of friends/supporters recognized that they needed to launch a more organized, far-reaching campaign that might touch a far larger audience and seriously make a difference in the lives of the Berry children.

As would be the case with any family abruptly thrown into the unfamiliar waters of philanthropic fundraising, however, the Berry’s extended family quickly realized they needed help. More specifically, they needed guidance into:

• How to create a memorable fundraising campaign
• The best approaches to building awareness for that campaign
• The appropriate mechanism(s) for collecting donations

With a technology platform specifically dedicated to nonprofit causes and years of fundraising experience, MobileCause was one of the companies enlisted to help. The first lesson: we needed to move quickly.

Building a Mobile Campaign

Experienced fundraisers know that time is rarely if ever on their side. Although the story was receiving significant media coverage, we knew it wouldn’t last. Free media coverage is to a fundraising campaign what a freak rain is to desert life – that is, you make the very most of it while you can. We needed to help the Berrys capture as many donations as possible before the fickle lens of the media spotlight moved else- where and took with it the public’s attention.

The first step, then, was to quickly come up with a formal campaign brand identity upon which broad-based awareness appeals could be built. Fortunately, an existing campaign – ShowYourHearts – was already established complete with an iconic brand depicting a
two-handed, heart-shaped gesture (see Figure 2).

ShowYourHearts was chosen for a simple but powerful reason: the gesture is wildly popular with young people and the celebrities they follow. The Berry family had an important connection with Justin Bieber’s management. Bieber’s team graciously agreed to help promote the campaign’s official July 27 launch date. With Bieber onboard other celebrities also agreed to participate, including pop performer Lady Gaga and reality TV’s Kardashian family. On the appointed day all agreed to Tweet, post Facebook messages, and speak about the Berry family wherever they may be. Locally, the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston (HJCF) stepped up to create The Berry Family Fund for Orphans, which is committed to meeting the long-term needs of children who are abruptly orphaned. The alignment of HJCF and the ShowYourHearts campaign made text fundraising a key component of the overall fundraising approach.

With the campaign and its awareness-building components falling into place, the last step was for MobileCause to leverage its unique carrier relationships to quickly secure a text-2-give keyword (“Berry”) for $10 individual donations. The campaign had agreed to focus heavily on mobile giving for the obvious reason that Bieber’s nearly 12-million followers were ardent devotees of the medium and because a $10 donation was far easier to absorb than the nonprofit’s industry’s historically larger, but rarer, donation average.

We also anticipated that as part of Bieber’s “Twitter-verse,” still more celebrities would see Bieber’s messages and join the cause by reaching out to their own followers. Sure enough only moments after Bieber’s first ShowYourHearts Tweets and Facebook posts went out similar messages were issued by Ryan Seacrest, Britney Spears, the Jonas Brothers, the Smashing Pumpkins, the Miami Heat and many, many more.

The result was nothing short of astounding. Sporting the fastest processing time of any donation mechanism (less than 15 seconds for a typical transaction), large numbers of fans were able to immediately heed the call. Donations begin pouring in at the rate of $7,500 per hour, resulting in a one-day total of nearly $100,000.

Throughout the one-day campaign, staff members were able to log into the MobileCause customer platform to track donations in real time, send SMS acknowledgments, and perform other administrative tasks. (As of this writing, approximately one month after the campaign launch, donations continue to be texted into the campaign.)

On a campaign-specific level, the text-2-give effort generated more than half of all donations and created more than 9,000 new relationships with the Berry family – something of particular importance given the long-term needs facing the children. From an industry perspective, however, the ShowYourHearts campaign further solidified mobile giving as a powerful new asset in the nonprofit fundraising arsenal. With an entire generation of young people coming of age with mobile technology as a cornerstone to their lives, mobile is the obvious playing field for nonprofits seeking to build awareness, loyalty – and actions – for their campaigns. (It is important to note, however, that it isn’t just young people who are responding to mobile messaging. According to a 2010 Pew Research Center Mobile Access Report, fully 72% of all U.S. mobile phone owners routinely send and receive text messages.)

Add to that society’s newfound love affair with Social Media  agents like Twitter and Facebook and its increasing need for speed, mobile is not only the logical choice for the forward-thinking nonprofit – it’s being demanded by the public itself.

Learn more about MobileCause fundraising and engagement tools for nonprofits.

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Communicate, Cultivate THEN Fundraise — Nonprofit White Paper #2

Posted: June 28th, 2011 | Author: MobileCause | Filed under: White Papers | Tags: Donor Care Study, Fundraising research, Mobile Fundraising stats, Mobile giving research, Nonprofit white paper, text to give research | Comments Off

Nonprofit White Paper #2—Mobile Fundraising Growth Strategy

Author: Doug Plank, Mobilecause, Chariman/ CEO
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Introduction

An international humanitarian crisis erupts. The Red Cross rushes in to help and employs an emerging but as-yet unproven technology to raise relief funds. To the astonishment of nonprofits everywhere, millions are raised and a new fundraising medium is born.

A synopsis of the mobile text-to-give campaign to benefit victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake? No. It is a recap of the late-1990’s refugee crisis in Kosovo and the first wide-scale use of the Internet for charitable fundraising efforts. Such are the ways powerful new technologies make their official debuts with nonprofits and donors alike: high-profile disaster, blue chip nonprofit, loads of media coverage and eye-popping donation totals. Yet just as reliably, subsequent efforts to employ that same new fundraising technology fall flat. What gives?

To understand the answer to that question is to understand how nonprofits can make the best possible transition to the mobile revolution, which is sweeping across the globe at a pace that makes those early days of Web technology seem antiquated by comparison.

Back to the Future

During the first weeks of the Kosovo refugee crisis the Red Cross generated an unheard of $2.5 million in online donations. This, mind you, at a time when the online aspirations of many nonprofits amounted to little more than a translation of print brochures to static Web pages. Coming as it did in the fevered dot-com era of brash new “e-tailers” boasting of millions coming across the digital transom, the success of the Kosovo campaign convinced nonprofits everywhere that shiny new websites were their key to fundraising gold.

“It is important to dispel the notion that any nonprofit was going to replicate the success of the Red Cross in Kosovo or Haiti.”

Except that it didn’t really work out that way. After investing huge sums of money and countless hours building those new websites, the nonprofit community discovered much to its dismay that most donors remained stubbornly loyal to their existing modes of giving. Now comes mobile technology as “the next big thing.” Haiti rakes in millions for Red Cross relief efforts, and the business pages are awash in talk of all things mobile. What’s a nonprofit to do?

For starters, it is important to dispel the notion that any nonprofit was going to replicate the success of the Red Cross in Kosovo or Haiti. As one of the world’s most recognized brands, the Red Cross also enjoyed round-the-clock media coverage (consider the price of that coverage—more than what was raised) of the Haiti earthquake and endless rounds of media endorsements. All of which means that not only was fundraising success in Haiti a foregone conclusion but it in no way was a fair approximation of what the typical nonprofit could expect under normal fundraising circumstances.

Of far more importance, however, is to understand the many lessons learned by the nonprofit community during those early years of online fundraising – lessons that are directly attributable to the growing success of online fundraising in more recent years, most notably in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

“… technological change always outpaces the speed with which we embrace and adopt such changes.”

The chief lesson being that technological change always outpaces humankind’s embrace and adoption of those changes – particularly when it comes to financial affairs. The old rules of establishing trust, building community, fostering engagement still apply regardless of the medium in which they are implemented.

In the early days of online transactions, even the biggest and savviest of e-tailers (think Amazon, for example) lost money – lots of it – for the simple reason consumers were still accustomed to purchasing their books at brick and mortar locations. For nonprofits, which traditionally lag behind their for-profit counterparts in technology adoption, the same held true: donors eschewed online donation forms in favor of more traditional support channels.

Friend Raise, THEN Fund Raise

It was not until nonprofits began exploring other more subtle (e.g. less immediately gratifying) aspects of emerging online technologies that those early investments began paying off.

Websites weren’t digital brochures, for example, they were searchable, dynamic, graphically rich storytelling vehicles available on any browser; HTML email wasn’t digitized snail mail, it was fast, affordable, eco-friendly, one-to-one communication.

The point being, once nonprofits recognized that “online” was not code for new donation-generating machine, they were able to focus on:

• Integrating online technology into their existing marketing, communication and development efforts

• Adapting to the new behavioral changes and expectations of their supporters including greater one-to-one engagement, transparency, and accountability.

• Transitioning supporters online when it made the most strategic sense.

• Recognizing and maximizing new opportunities as they emerged

• Facilitating new means of giving and other forms of support.

As Tonia Zampieri of Loyalty Clicks says, the ongoing evolution in digital technologies mean nonprofits must focus more heavily on engagement with the recognition that financial and other forms of support will naturally follow. “It’s all about your return on your engagement,” says Zampieri. “Return on Engagement is the new Return on Investment.”

Or as marketing gurus Chris Fahey and Tim Meaney suggest, new digital technologies are feeding into our innate “need to contribute to the conversation. … As humans, we’re on an unwavering path to make it easier to communicate with one another.”

Which brings us to the easiest and most ubiquitous of all communication technologies: mobile.

As we noted in our previous white paper (Mobile Technology & Nonprofits: Where Are We Headed?), the growth in mobile technology is nothing short of spectacular. Across the globe billions of people are shifting their digital allegiances to mobile devices and within a year or two more human beings will access the Internet (and by extension, your nonprofit organization) via mobile devices than PCs.

The question is whether or not the nonprofit world is ready for this new mobile world and whether it now understands the steps necessary to make the most of this unparalleled opportunity.

Mobile Markets Abound

The answer to the first question, at least for now, appears to be ‘no.’ In a recent NTEN survey, only 16% of nonprofits expect to have a mobile-ready website in place this year and only 19% will have a smartphone application.

“Return on Engagement is the new Return on Investment.”

Now compare those numbers with for-profit marketers who literally are speeding into the mobile market. In a new report from IBM, 43% of corporations reported using mobile marketing practices in 2010 and that number is expected to rise to nearly 70% this year.

Similarly, consumers are not simply gobbling up smartphones and tablets at historic rates, they’re using them to engage with their favorite brands. In a study conducted earlier this year by Performics and ROI Research, fully half of all consumers reported making purchases via their mobile devices in 2010 and that number is expected to reach 75% this year.

Meanwhile, Visa, Mastercard and other transaction processing giants are racing to build mobile payment technology that is as ubiquitous as the devices themselves. Juniper Research says that Near Field Communications (NFC) purchases just for ticketing (e.g. travel, shows, etc.), will climb from just 2 million in 2010 to a staggering 15 billion by 2014.

NFC, which makes it easier for individuals to make location-based purchases (and donations), is just one example of the so-called “mobile wallet” initiatives that also allow individuals to make purchases via mobile Web payments (WAP), direct mobile billing, SMS and direct carrier. Juniper claims that within two years mobile payments will total $600 billion.

For nonprofits, these are good signs. Forrester Research has confirmed that the same individuals most likely to use smartphones and other advanced mobile technology are the same audience upon which nonprofits most depend for support – namely educated and financially secure.

The Rules of Mobile Engagement

The statistics don’t lie. Consumers and the corporations that serve them are taking their relationship online very, very quickly. Yet the nonprofit community is not following them. Put even more bluntly, donors, volunteers, activists, members, and alumni are akin to guests at a house party who have taken their conversation into the living room while much of the nonprofit world remains stubbornly out of earshot in the kitchen.

Or as the architects of the NTEN survey posited, picture for a moment a nonprofit sending an email blast to supporters, most of who receive it on their mobile devices. Yet because the nonprofit is not mobile-ready, the recipient is unable to take the desired action. Opportunity lost.

Unlikely to happen? Consider that across virtually every industry the growth of marketing email lists has either slowed or altogether flat-lined while the growth in and demand for text messaging lists is exploding. Corporations today are routinely marrying marketing channels like email and SMS for maximum exposure/success.

Says Jessica Bosanko of M+R Strategic Services: “We know that the opportunistic timing of email and mail can boost response rates. Nonprofits are seeing similar results with text messaging now, with supporters who are signing up for texts far outperforming” more traditional outreach methods.

The signals are all there: Consumers and the companies that wish to engage with them are embracing mobile – today.
As the nonprofit industry’s early (and costly) misadventures with online technology so aptly demonstrated, new technologies emerge quickly – but the pace at which they are adopted takes time. Indeed, to view mobile technology as little more than a one-and-done text-to-give platform is to utterly miss the real opportunities mobile is offering nonprofits to engage with their supporters.

Mobile technology can do this in any number of ways including:

• Communication — While mobile obviously is not the platform for delivering lengthy soliloquies, its ‘mobile ubiquity’ enables a nonprofit to keep its brand front-of-mind by delivering periodic updates to the organization’s activities.

Example: The Monterey Bay Aquarium turned its popular guide to seafood eating into a mobile application called Seafood Watch and to date has enjoyed more than 480,000 downloads, enabling the nonprofit not simply to remain front and center with its supporters when it comes to their favorite subject, but also to support its own mission by sending them to ocean-friendly seafood eateries.

• Outreach — Every new generation of technology is adopted at a higher rate by teens and young adults, meaning mobile is an excellent tool for building a support base of younger people just starting to make their nonprofit affiliations.

Example: In an implicit recognition that its key teen demographic is overwhelmingly mobile, Planned Parenthood of America has transitioned much of its outreach efforts to mobile. Teens are encouraged to text their questions to the organization for answers.
The point being, mobile takes your brand with it.

• Information Gathering — As Facebook and other Social Media are demonstrating, online quizzes, surveys and questionnaires are incredibly successful ways for organizations to collect information that can be employed for strategic planning purposes.

Example: The American Cancer Society has rolled out a mobile application featuring “virtual candles” that recipients can actually blow out (at least on iPhones). The app pulls information from recipients’ Facebook pages including their birthday and encourages activism and support of ACS activities to lengthen life and thereby lead to “more birthdays.”

• Community Building — Mobile technology is proving to be an exceptionally popular means for reaching individuals both directly and through Social Media platforms. Says the 390,000-member MarketingProfs, “Armed with the right technology, marketers can target and reach any consumer on a handset via different digital marketing channels. No longer is reach possible only at the expense of targeting.”

“The signals are all there: Consumers and the companies that wish to engage with them are embracing mobile — today.”

Example: San Francisco’s Marine Mammal Center offered visitors to the city’s famed Pier 39 the ability to upload free ringtones with a recording of the sea lions that routinely lounge at the dock. To date more than 1,500 people have downloaded the ringtones and signed on as supporters.

• Activism — Mobile technology is an ideal application for summoning the troops to legislative battle at a moment’s notice and providing them with the tools to locate their lawmakers and act.

Example: Incensed at Sen. Alan Simpson equating Social Security to a “milk cow,” AARP sent a text message to 44,000 members alerting them to Simpson’s statement and urging them to call in and leave a heartfelt message of their own. In just the first 24 hours AARP had nearly 1,000 personal voice messages from supporters delivered direct to the voicemail boxes of their congressional lawmakers.

• Fundraising — As consumers become increasingly comfortable making purchases via mobile devices and as the technology evolves to facilitate that process, nonprofit fundraising totals from mobile devices is certain to rise.

Example: Ed Randall’s nonprofit, Bat For the Cure, has been successfully using two-dimensional QR (Quick Response) barcodes at baseball parks across the country to enable visitors to download an application. An example of a QR barcode: this one links to www.mobilecause.com for its “One Million Voices Against Prostate Cancer.”

The application enables recipients to learn more about prostate cancer prevention and detection, sign a petition endorsing greater government support, and donate. All of which is to say, by applying the community engagement lessons learned the hard way during those early days of the online world, nonprofits can leverage the hyper-growth of the mobile phenomenon and eventually transform it into fundraising success.

Conclusion

So how does the nonprofit community take advantage of mobile tech? We recommend the following steps be taken immediately.

• Create a mobile-ready website – As always, this is the first impression many will have of your organization. Google reported during its 2011 ThinkMobile event that it saw a 400% increase in searches via mobile devices in 2010 and says that number is expected to grow much higher in 2011. The question every nonprofit must ask itself is this: If someone is searching for them via a mobile device, what will they find?

• Activate your supporters by getting them to opt into your mobile program (this can be accomplished via a survey, a new form field on your website, etc.). As noted earlier, text lists are growing at a much faster clip than email.

• Engage your supporters with updates, quizzes or games, targeted promotional opportunities, etc.

• Integrate your mobile program with your existing programs. The same complementary approach combining postal and email is generating similar results combining email and mobile messaging.

• Develop a unique mobile application that enables supporters, with the tap of a finger, to engage with your organization.
The emergence of online technology in the 1990s put the whole process of digital engagement in motion. Now comes the natural (and logical) offspring of that era – mobile connectivity and engagement anywhere at any time.

Now is the time for the nonprofit world to put to work those early lessons and make the most of the opportunities mobile has to offer. This one is coming fast.

Learn more about MobileCause fundraising and engagement tools for nonprofits.

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Mobile Technology & Nonprofits—Nonprofit White Paper #1

Posted: April 25th, 2011 | Author: MobileCause | Filed under: White Papers | Tags: Fundraising research, innogive conference, innovative giving, Mobile giving research, nonprofit education, nonprofit research, Nonprofit white paper, text to give research | Comments Off

Nonprofit White Paper #1—Where Are We Headed

Author: Doug Plank, MobileCause Chairman/CEO
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This is the first in a series of white papers from the MobileCause Nonprofit Research & Education series.

Laying the Groundwork

In the beginning was the Internet, an information superhighway that gradually altered the way we humans do, well, just about everything. But because the implementation of this vast new infrastructure took time and much of its technology was expensive and confusing, resource-constrained nonprofits were able to tread slowly into these new waters. Besides, despite all of the hoopla surrounding the new interloper, the old-guard institutions upon which nonprofits had for so long depended – direct mail, home telephones, and mainstream media – showed no signs of going anywhere. What was the rush? But as real superhighways prove, when a networked infrastructure built for speed, easy access, and human connectivity is at last put into place, heavy volumes of high-speed traffic is precisely what you get – and lots of it. The result was a sea change both in the way organizations deliver products, services and information as well as the ways in which the public receives and shares it. The old-world model of one-to-many communication suddenly found itself under siege and with it those mainstays of the nonprofit world.

Mobilizing the Masses

As if those changes weren’t enough, now comes the dizzyingly-fast development of digital applications  and services capable of piggybacking on that initial infrastructural investment. Where early incarnations of the Internet focused on enabling users to digitize and share information between fixed locations* – in  essence, giving legs to the world’s information - today the system is rapidly evolving into a mechanism  through which all parts of the equation are equally mobile: which is to say, the content and its users. In effect, the unwritten motto of today’s Internet might be said to be: “The world is wherever you want it to be.” And all of this is happening, mind you, on a scale and at a pace that makes those early days of the  Internet seem almost horse-and-buggy by comparison. Which is to say that for the nonprofit industry, the same cautious tone with which it greeted the now- quaint days of Web 1.0 and even 2.0 may no longer be practical, particularly in a world where literally hundreds of millions of people are collectively embracing small, convenient, affordable, mobile devices and all that those devices imply.

*Morgan Stanley reports that the use of home-based personal computers has fallen more than 20% just since 2008, and that this decline is expected to accelerate as the rate of mobile adoption intensifies.

Ready … Set … GO!

Today not only is an increasingly juiced Internet rapidly tearing away the iconic postal, media and telephonic institutions upon which the nonprofit world for so long depended*, it also is calling into question the efficacy of some relatively “new” Web-based applications, including PC-based email. At the same time its digital backbone is serving as the breeding ground for a seeming endless stream of mobile applications, systems and services that quite literally are putting the world into the palm of every human on the planet. And all of this isn’t coming, it’s happening – now. The statistics are staggering. Even as network speed doubled in 2010, the traffic riding all that bandwidth tripled (for the third consecutive year). Where is it originating? Cisco Systems predicts smart phone traffic will grow an incredible 26-fold by 2015, which would be impressive enough except that the company says tablets such as Apple’s iPad will generate five times the traffic of those same smart phones. In other words, mobile devices are really beginning to flex the Internet’s muscles. And this is just for starters. In just four short years the increasingly popular tablets are expected to produce more traffic than today’s entire Internet combined. To handle all that added throughput, network speeds during that same period are expected to increase by a magnitude of 10. It will be needed because Cisco goes on to predict that before the end of the decade approximately one billion people will be accessing the Internet solely through mobile devices. The total anticipated number of mobile devices in use by mid-decade: an unimaginable 7.1 billion, or one mobile device for every man, woman and child on the planet.

*Despite eliminating 105,000 jobs, the US Postal Service lost $8.5 billion in 2010; over the past 5 years 1 out of 4 consumers has abandoned landlines entirely and that trend is expected to intensify; and according to the Newspaper Association of America, total ad revenues for newspapers fell from nearly $50 billion to less than $25 billion.

Generation Mobile

Why the explosive growth in mobile devices? For starters, entire generations of young people are coming of age where hard-wired connectivity is no longer required – or desired. According to a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), one-third of people 35 or younger do not have telephone land lines in their homes and the CDC says that percentage jumps to 50% when you look at those ages 25-29. Similarly, these young adults do not expect their access to be tied to specific locations. They increasingly  are eschewing purchases of cumbersome desk or laptop computers, pricey monthly Internet service fees, telephones and digital cameras for the simple reason some or even most of the features in which they are interested are rolled into a single, portable mobile device – and at a fraction of the cost. Even cellular phones are taking a hit as their more intelligent cousins – “smart phones” – gobble up market share*. The bottom line: hundreds of millions of individuals are very quickly deducing that they can have access to the Internet without the expense, hassle, or physical limitations of previous technologies and there’s no turning back. In a statistic that illustrates just how ingrained our desire for mobile connectivity has become, consider that there are 50 million smart phones in homes that do not even have electricity. These changes are unfolding so rapidly that even mobile technology’s most ardent proponents have been taken by surprise. So what does all of this change mean to the typical nonprofit?

*Motorola, the one-time cellphone behemoth, saw sales drop nearly 30% in 2010 while Apple and other smartphone purveyors grew substantially.

For NPOs I: Old Concerns Don’t Apply

Given that mobile is fast becoming the medium of choice for much of the world’s population, the non- profit industry’s historically cool approach to rapidly integrating new technology into their services mix leaves them vulnerable to competition encroaching not simply on the younger demographics that they’re aiming for, but also their existing donors and members. *After all, if so many individuals soon will be connecting to the Internet and networking with their communities via mobile devices only, it obviously behooves nonprofits to shift at least some of their operations to where these conversations are taking place. And while nonprofits are to be saluted for tapping into social media to a degree unmatched even by their for-profit counterparts, *it is important to recognize that more and more of that social media experience is being fed and sustained by mobile devices.

*Dartmouth University’s Center for Marketing Research says 97% of nonprofits use social media – better even than their for-profit counterparts.

Fortunately, many of the industry’s concerns about new technology in general and mobile in particular don’t apply. For example:

COST – While new technologies can prove prohibitively expensive to budget-conscious nonprofits, mobile requires very small upfront investments.

COMPLEXITY – Many nonprofits lack the in-house expertise needed to adopt and implement new technologies, *but mobile is simply leveraging existing infrastructure rather than building something new. Implementing a mobile technology program is extremely straight-forward and the tools for managing and maintaining mobile campaigns are intuitive.

*A recent NTEN labor study shows fully one-fourth of all NPOs lack even a single employee dedicated to technology.

ONE-DIMENSIONAL – Mobile made its first big splash in the nonprofit world during the recent earthquake in Haiti, making it far easier for individuals to contribute to the relief effort but also giving the in- accurate perception that mobile is little more than a text-to-give application. Mobile in fact offers nonprofits a multifaceted experience, and includes CRM, communication, data mining, micro and macro billing, text polling, Twitter connectivity and more.*

*The number of applications being built for mobile technology is literally exploding. As Appcelerator states, the days of application experimentation are over – the apps are here and they’re only going to intensify in number, capability and adoption.

*SMALL RETURNS – Early versions of mobile giving were limited to $5 and $10, largely because of their strict dependence on telecom carriers. But as the industry continues to evolve, not only will the dependence on the carriers be lessened, but the rapid adoption of mobile wallet and similar applications will make it increasingly easy for donors to contribute any amount of their choosing.

TRANSPARENCY – Transparency and accountability have always been a concern to the nonprofit world. Fortunately, the technology, reporting and remittance layers that exist between donors and NPOs with some mobile systems are being eliminated by others, effectively putting complete control where it belongs: with the nonprofit.

For NPOs II: No Time To Waste

So why the rush? First and foremost, mobile is proving popular in a way few could have anticipated. In the very near future, that same population of educated, active, conscientious donors, volunteers, members, activists and alumni upon which the nonprofit world has so long depended will be almost entirely mobile. In other words, their passion for their favorite cause(s) won’t have changed, but the devices through which they engage those passions will. Nonprofits must be ready. Second, the barriers to participation in mobile technology are minimal, meaning that the more forward thinking of the nation’s 1.5 million nonprofits will, in fact, take advantage of this revolution. Those who don’t participate are likely ceding their place at the table to their competition. Third, mobile is proving especially attractive to younger generations – precisely the audience many non- profits are attempting to engage, especially as older supporters retire and otherwise become less engaged. If a nonprofit wants a relationship with younger, mobile donors, it needs to reach them through the communication channel of their choice.

*With more than 1.5 million nonprofits in operation today, competition has never been more intense and that likely will intensify in a global economy that appears will be stagnant at best for many years to come.

What To Do?

The nonprofit can take a number of immediate and important steps to lay the groundwork for a successful mobile technology program.

1—Add mobile numbers to your data capture initiatives. In the same way that nonprofits not so long ago began asking for email addresses, today it is of paramount importance to collect mobile numbers. For existing donors, members, activists, etc., simple surveys, special event registrations, or other programs can be implemented to capture this information.

2—Research and interview mobile service providers. Ensure they have:

• Significant experience in the nonprofit arena
• Offer maximum transparency/connectivity between you and your mobile subscribers
• Enjoy strong relationships with wireless carriers

3—Take small, measured steps. Start with simple, evocative, informative messages to subscribers to determine what resonates. Work up toward larger campaigns.

Conclusion

While mobile technologies are no panacea, they are going to be an increasingly important part of any nonprofit’s communication, marketing, activism and fundraising package. Society’s rapid and widespread transition to smart phones, tablets and other mobile devices already is fundamentally changing virtually every aspect of our lives. Given the similarly explosive growth in the number and variety of mobile applications and it is clear that this transformation is only going to intensify in the coming months. Unlike previous technological innovations/revolutions, however, there should be a far greater sense of urgency for nonprofits. Consider, for example, that to reach 50 million users it took radio 38 years; television 14 years; and the Internet just four years. But it took Facebook just over six years to reach 500 million members. Why the enormous difference? Because as opposed to radio, TV and the Internet, these newer applications are building upon existing – albeit increasingly enhanced – infrastructure. We are not waiting for the highway to be built, we are witnessing the introduction of much faster vehicles. Mobile is here, ready or not.

*The global penetration of broadband speeds recently reached 500 million and will reach at least 650 million by 2013.

Learn more about MobileCause fundraising and engagement tools for nonprofits.

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