Donors who use cell phones to make donations do more than
give, they talk about it. They actively encourage others to
give. They may not do much due diligence themselves, but they sure do spread
the word.
Those insights come from a new report looking at text
donations made to Haiti after the devastating earthquake of January 12, 2010. More than $43 million was raised through
mobile giving for that disaster. Given how many of us carry our phones
everywhere, it seems likely that we’ll do more of this.
The research, conducted
by the Pew Center for the Internet and American Life, The Berkman
Center at Harvard, and mGive (with support from the John S and James L Knight Foundation) also found that more than half of the mobile
donors to Haiti relief went on to make additional disaster related mobile gifts
over time. This makes me wonder if the behaviors of these donors in a disaster
will become a new norm – call them “roaming reflexive donors.” This kind of
giving isn’t committed to a place, a cause or an organization – it’s immediate,
“do-something and talk about it.”
While the ability to give small amounts of money quickly
might seem like a fragmenting force for donations, the energy with which these
donors tell others about their donations might serve as some form of “glue” and
“direction” – sending donations to a few organizations with the most vocal
early givers, for example.
I read this research right after reviewing a report from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Cultures
of Giving Project. That research notes that Blacks give, on average, 25% more of their
income than Whites. Sixty-three percent of Latinos give. These are important
insights about the “long tail” of giving, the $211 billion we as individuals
give in small bits every year. These data beg to be correlated with data on
cell phone use for texting by demographic group (also from Pew).
Every click we make on the web or on our phones leaves a
“data shadow.” The collection of these shadows add up into patterns that we are
getting much better at “seeing” through data analytics, visualizations, and
surveys and research such as that done by Pew and Berkman.
There has been a great deal of speculation in the last
decade about how the tech-enabled long
tail of giving might change the way all of philanthropy works. One line of
questioning asks if the wisdom of the giving crowd, now made visible, will inform
nonprofits or big foundations? Online giving platforms have multiplied in
recent years, each trying to get the right info to the small donors to motivate
them to give.
The question this research raises for me is “what information
matters to whom, when?” The best research on this question as it pertains to the "head of the tail" (wealthier donors) is in the form of the Money For Good reports (I and II). There have always been (at least) two sources of
information for donors – their peers and the organizations themselves. The explosion of third party information
sources (separate from foundations) that rate, review and opine on different
organizations mostly provide information on the front end to inform a gift. But
if the Pew/Berkman research is right, and the order of action on mobile giving
is “give, tell, move on” where does information fit in? And should the goal
be to inform the key people in any given network, as it’s their opinion,
recommendations and tweets that will influence others?
