Text Message Donations now a Reality
The use of new technology in athletics development was a major discussion point at the NAADD Convention on Orlando just a few weeks ago. Every school is searching for ways to use social networking, cellular phones, and online resources to boost their annual fund and gifts to the university. At the University of Colorado, Boulder, a groundbreaking effort to utilize new technology may be on the horizon.
According to the Daily Camera (Boulder’s Daily Newspaper), CU is looking into a technology and software package from Mobile Accord that will allow an innovative method of donation, a text message.
The concept is actually quite simple, a donor can make a donation to CU’s Foundation (which will show up on the consumer’s cell phone bill at the end of the month) by sending a text message to a predetermined short code. The amount pledged will then be transfered to the foundation’s account.
The article cited a home football game versus a big rival as a perfect opportunity to utilize the technology, “During a break in play, an announcer could tell spectators to pull out their cell phones, make a donation via text message and see which set of fans can raise more green for their respective school.” With such a captive audience, it is hard to imagine the idea would not work.
The main target audience of this idea is certainly the younger CU alumni and current students. Text messaging is such a common activity amongst college-aged and recently graduated students, it is reasonable to think that this type of donation would be much more appealing to them. While CU has not committed to the technology quite yet, text-donations are likely to catch on quickly throughout the country.
[...] 12, 2009 by Rob Norris In late June, we wrote about the University of Colorado and their research into using text-messaging as a fundraising tool. At the time, no athletics department had yet implemented such a campaign, but the potential of [...]
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