Why is SMS in decline for fundraising?

I came across two pieces of info last week that I hadn't seen before from the guys over at NFPSynergy that I felt needed looking into further.  Firstly the latest installment in their Virtual Promise Survey which was taken last year.  In here the percentage of not for profit orgs who are looking to use SMS and mobile technology as a communication tool has dropped from a high of 57% in 2006 to 27% in 2008 - so why the apathy you might ask?  Well further research by NFP (due out very soon) states that 72% of orgs see mobile phone company charges as a barrier for entry into this field.  The research further goes onto say that 70% of charities had not tried fundraising by text message.

However there is an easier answer I believe than trying to get the blood out of the proverbial with the mobile phone providers (not that we should stop trying to pressure them!) but why not embrace the technology already out there and cut out the middle man?  I've been pushing for a while now a way that you can use our technology to effectively force the mobile phone company out of the loop.  Now - don't get me wrong - it's not as easy as sending a text message and a small charge (usually £1.50) is taken from your mobile phone bill but it could be a simple way that could mean that the donations are larger, you get more buy in from the donor and you capture more info...all at the same time.

Using SMS as a means to provide a link to a mobile Internet site which could collect donations would be the solution to this age old problem.  What it also helps with is that the donor is not obliged to give one set amount and can opt to give more from their credit card and the charity is not losing money.  Sending a thank you by SMS shortly afterwards will help also.  It is a far more personalised medium in the eyes of the public and users are far less likely to be spammed so sending via this medium does not rely on people opening their email and can be delivered straight to their pockets.  Donations in realtime at events can also be especially useful using this method.  All it takes is proper set up of a mobile internet page (less graphics, easy simple forms etc) and the org is ready to go in some cases it's actually just setting up CSS on their pages that can be used on a mobile device.  There are so many benefits to this media that it's foolish of us to dismiss it because of one roadblock.  I know I've gone on about this before but it's something that is very important and very simple and a recent Nielsen survey showed that 23% of mobile phone users who accessed the Internet online (2 Million people in the UK!) are accessing social networks through their mobile phone which is an increase of 249% in the last year.

So maybe some orgs are shying away from mobile technology because of the costs but the public certainly are not and where the public are is where we in the not for profit industry want to be - right?  So why don't we try another way of using the technology for fundraising instead of stopping and waiting for the mobile phone companies to relent.