[LINK] enable giving

[Peter Batchelor]

Just came across this website, which assists in setting up 
infrastructure for charities to target a younger audience, allowing 
them to make donations using their favourite accessory, the mobile phone.

"ENABLE GIVING is a social enterprise consultancy established to 
enable the smooth implementation of mobile phone giving on behalf of 
charities and organisations."
http://www.enablegiving.co.uk/

http://www.e-strategyguide.gov.au/phone_on_the_web/using_sms makes 
mention of this sort of technology, and gives the example of the SMS 
campaign used for receiving donations for the Tsunami appeal, but 
I've not heard it mentioned by the charities that we donate to / 
receive requests from.

It strikes me as a clever way of cutting out the middleman, or at 
least reducing the percentage lost - one issue that they talk about 
is needing to lobby the carriers to reduce the fee for each sms to a 
charitable campaign. Remember the idea of paying for a soft drink or 
snack at an Internet-enabled vending machine by sending an sms to the 
number shown on the machine, which then releases your chosen 
item?  The roadside collectors wouldn't be impressed if, when asked 
for a donation, you agreed, but said that you would just SMS the full 
amount directly to the charity involved....

Peter