6th October 2011

AIME's Interactive Technology for the Charitable Sector Event Showcases Latest Innovations for Engaging Donors and Driving New Fundraising Campaigns

Developments in mobile, social media and online platform tools point way to fundraising success in an uncertain future

6th Oct 2011 The Association for Interactive Media & Entertainment’s (AIME) second annual conference and exhibition was held last month at LBi’s headquarters in Brick Lane, east London.

The event was designed to educate the charitable sector how interactive platforms can significantly increase the scope and value for donor engagement and fundraising campaigns, as well as draw attention to the various regulatory compliance and best practice issues which the industry has produced.

Drawing together world class experts from charities such as UNICEF, Comic Relief and DEC, non-profit trade associations like AIME, CTT, Small Charities Coalition and Race Online 2012, as well as leading interactive services companies such as OpenMarket, 3, Telecom Express and Incentivated, the event highlighted some of the latest developments and innovations in technology-driven campaigns available to small, medium and large charity organisations.

In her opening remarks to delegates, Annie Dare, Special Advisor to Martha Lane Fox, head of Race Online 2012, said that education for the charitable sector remains key. “Awareness and driving education of the power of technology for the charitable sector is so important. Especially with regards to low cost and in some cases free availability of technology.”

Perhaps the most powerful demonstration of the capacity of technology to both spread awareness and drive donor fundraising through mobile was provided by Michael Newsome, Director of Individual Giving at UNICEF.

“On 12 January 2010 at 21:53 I got an SMS alert from GDAX – the global disaster awareness network –to say an earthquake had hit Haiti. In 35 seconds 220,000 people died. 3million more were affected. 620,000 made homeless. 600,000 more displaced to rural areas.”

News about the disaster spread around the globe within hours with information being shared virally through social networks and text messaging. “The 70007 mobile short-code provided the ability for donors to give £5, £8 or £10 via text. This was supported and promoted by Everything Everywhere

mobile network and within 24 hours, more than £190,000 had been raised in the UK alone,” said Newsome.

“Haiti was the turning point when UNICEF realised the scale of what mobile can do – not just in reconnecting the phones in Haiti, but in delivering all these small donations,” Newsome. “There is something in this mobile lark – thanks to its scale: 4 billion people worldwide have one. Traditional charity channels have been falling, but we have found that most people would want to give through SMS, especially at the young end of the spectrum.“

Newsome said that, currently, UNICEF uses mobile in 41 ways. “We use mobile vouchers in Africa to deliver money to people; we use it all over the place to deliver health care and child protection information – not least cholera in Haiti. We also do drought monitoring in Ethiopia, to try and get early warning systems in place to prevent the effects of drought spreading. Mobile is very important and getting more important.”

“Technology is very important to Comic Relief, as it not only lets our viewers engage with us and donate, but it can also help us run our business more efficiently,” says Marcus East, CIO, at Comic Relief. “But using it to engage young people is becoming even more important. And mobile and social networks is how kids want to do things.”

This years’ Comic Relief campaign used Augmented Reality apps on both mobile and desktop cameras to create a Red Nose on users’ faces. The apps drive 100,000 consumers to the website and, on the night of Comic Relief itself, more than 500,000 people visited the mobile website. East said the ROI on this app was 1,400%! He stressed to delegates that “social media is the glue” that drives campaigns online. “Use social media as the main communications tool and drive people to where you can collect funds while giving them an engaging experience at the same time,” said East.

Now mobile in charity can deliver many things, but mostly it is being looked at right now as a means of getting donations – either from the hard to reach young audience who no longer read newspapers or want to be ‘chugged’ in the street, or from getting regulator donors to donate more on a spontaneous basis.

According to Elisabeth Kessick, Head of Insight at JustGiving: “Only 20% of charities so far use SMS to raise money – because of cost worries and lack of know-how”. But the number is growing, with 58% of youth saying they would text.

“Justtextgiving by Vodafone allows charities to get donations totally for free,” she says. “No transaction or network charges. This is a big deal as mentioned before. 37% are thinking of doing it, but worry about the skimming off the top.” In fact, Vodafone has put £5million into this and wants to be a key driver to the Third sector. “Since 9th May we have had 5000 UK charities give it a go,” says Kessick.

Mobile provides a clear donation channel for charities: the built in billing mechanisms of mobile and the fact that now mobile PayPal also works – something not lost of Comic Relief – means that mobile can be used to make the act of giving pretty simple, which appeals greatly to the charities. With over 50% of the UK populous using mobile media services, the growing importance of mobile as an engagement and fundraising channel is undeniable.

Oisin Lunny, Senior Market Development Manager at OpenMarket used the event to point out just how simple mobile – thanks, in part to OpenMarket’s technology – was making donating.

“Thanks to the work we have done to get VAT agreed and to get all UK operators to give all the money over to charity, we can now offer donors the ability to send a short word to a five digit shortcode and donate. A message comes back and a simple reply then allows for them to give gift aid too. It makes it very simple for people to do.”

The technology provided by companies like OpenMarket also means that charities can start a dialogue with their donors and engage them on an on going basis. This is what today’s consumers want, says CTT’s CEO, Richard Craig. “This engagement is key to what the industry can bring to charities. Sharing and engaging is becoming a new mantra within the third sector”.

This role of social media is gaining ground across the charity sector. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has embraced social media to great effect, but by using what is already out there, rather than building anything bespoke. Max St John, Lead Consultant, Non-profit and Public Sector at Nixon McInnes, shared with delegates how his firm helped WWF go social. “One of the first things we did was to set up social media council – a steering group for social – which meets monthly from across the organization at WWF to talk about what they are doing in social, what their problems and challenges are, what their learnings are, or what else they have seen online that WWF could use or learn from. Its primary purpose is to build confidence outside of traditional areas where online and digital skills may lie. Sharing skills and knowledge and get people out there talking about it.”

The acid test for the social strategy at WWF was the campaign around tigers. As Adrian Cockle, Head of Online at WWF explained: “There are more tigers in captivity in the USA than there are in the wild worldwide. We wanted to run a campaign to double the numbers of tigers in the wild by the next year of the tiger - 2020. Here we completely integrated social into all our activity. We did this using a simple landing page to which people were driven from magazines and response cards. We set up save the tiger Twibbons (some of which are still in use), as well as a new Facebook page for the campaign – with a schedule of updates created in advance and sent out so we knew what was going out always. And it proved to be very sticky content: one Friday the update hadn’t gone up for technical reasons and we got loads of messages asking where it was!” This content was shared and the campaign grew virally using social. It also played its part when Dispatches on Channel 4 tried to rubbish the campaign. N.B The best time to communicate with youth on Facebook is 5.20pm according to WWF.

AIME’s event provided the annual industry platform for charities and technology partners to share knowledge and experiences around the use of interactive technologies. The key theme coming out of this year’s event was ‘sharing’. “AIME has recently conducted research to understand the technology needs of charities – small, medium and large – and if there is one take away from this, it is the huge demand for education and increased insight into how technologies can be effectively used by the charity sector”, explains Toby Padgham, AIME Managing Director.

“After last year’s event we established a working group of cross industry / third sector representatives to work on education and sector growth initiatives, so it was good to hear speakers from the charity sector supporting the view, that understanding and implementation of technology doesn’t have to be done in isolation and that the industry needs to work collectively to achieve growth”, says Padgham.

Click here to view our post event video, sponsored by CTT

Conference Sessions, Speakers & Presentations

Welcome & Keynote Address - Why UNICEF sees mobile as a critical facet of its future expansion
Michael Newsome, UNICEF
Tim Longfoot, Open Fundraising

Driving the growth of your charity through utilising interactive technologies
Richard Dutton, Charities Trust

Evaluating the performance of interactive technologies during Comic Relief 2011
Marcus East, Comic Relief

Getting social media into the heart of your charity
Max St John, NixonMcInnes
Adrian Cockle, WWF

Panel Discussion: Partnerships and Technologies - How is the future of donor engagement taking shape

How an opt-in mechanism has opened up a new revenue stream from mobile payments
Oisin Lunny, OpenMarket

Donations at the speed of text
Elizabeth Kessick, JustGiving

Harnessing the power of Facebook to creat a unique Text-to-Donate campaign
Paul Swaddle, PocketApp
Jeremy Davis, Chameleon

Panel Discussion: Managing Donor Payment Channels: Online, mobile fixed and IVR

Moving your charity into the digital world
Patrick Nash, Connect Assist
Rob Mansell, Retail Trust

Best practices and compliance with data protection and privacy for digital fundraising campaigns
Iain Ainslie, ACE European Group

Panel Discussion: Regulation, Regulation, Regulation

Panel Discussion: A Brave New World?

Special Address: Hyper Island - results from a unique collaborative project between LBi, AIME and some of the world's leading marketing & technology minds
Rosalie Kurton, LBi
Laura Jordan, LBi

2011 attendees include:

Act4Africa • African Health Policy Network • Age Concern North • East Wales • All Saints Church • Bates Wells & Braithwaite • BBC • Black Country Foodbank • Bone Cancer Research Trust • Boxmap • BT Agilemedia • CAFOD • Cambridge Women's Resources Centre • Cardsave Online • Cathedral Archer Project • Chameleon • Chapter Eight Limited • Charities Trust • Charity Leaders' Exchange • Child Bereavement Charity • ChildAid • Christians Against Poverty • Civil Society • ClarityMark • Comic Relief • Community Links Bromley • Community Network • Congo Action • ConnectAssist • Cork & Leather • CTT • Culture, Media, Sport and the Olympics Committee • Dialogue Communications • Empanda • Eritrean Relief Association (UK) • Error Creative Studio • Froglife • Giles Insurance • Givey • Harvest Media Group • Her Centre • HomeMade Digital • HOPE Worldwide • IAB • ImpulsePay • IMRG • IMT • Incentivated • Instagiv • International Childcare Trust • International Needs • ITV • JustGiving • Kangaroos • Keyfund • Knowledge Peers • LBi • Livingway Ministries • mBlox • Melanesian Mission • MIG • mkodo • mobileSQUARED • Move On Seed Support • Myrovlytis Trust • NixonMcInnes • Norwich Door to Door • On Purpose • Open Fundraising • OpenMarket • Oxfam • Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund • Parkinson's UK • paythru • Peppermobi • PhonepayPlus • PocketApp • Race Online 2012 • Retail Trust • Rogavi • SAMH • SCC • St Francis Children's Society • St Michael's Fellowship • Stifford Community Centre • Strategic Brief • Students Union, Institute of Education • Telecom Express • Telefonica UK • The Ark Trust • The Counselling Foundation • The Makaton Charity • The Woodroffe Benton Foundation • Tomorrow's People • Toybox • Trust for Research and Education on the Arms Trade • UK Government • UNICEF • Veoo • wandering bear • WIN • WWF • York People First • YouthNet

Thanks to our 2011 Sponsors:

OpenMarket - OpenMarket is proud to have been associated with this event. We were extremely impressed with the quality of the speakers and the amount of knowledge shared with delegates. There seems to be a significant appetite in the charitable sector for understanding how various interactive platforms, especially mobile, can help them achieve their donor engagement and fundraising goals. OpenMarket received many enquiries both on the day and subsequently from interested organizations and we are actively working directly and with our service partners to help these charities identify bespoke solutions for each of them.

Incentivated - Incentivated (www.incentivated.com) is an independent technology company with 10 years’ experience operating exclusively in the mobile marketing services sector. We help our clients engage with their customers by designing, developing and delivering integrated acquisition, retention (CRM) and transaction (mCommerce) campaigns and services for mobile. Our technology and staff help brands, the public sector and charities to develop everything from enterprise messaging (SMS & MMS) through mobile internet sites, to applications. We also provide strategic, creative and technical advice for the use of mobile. To find out more about our services for charities (e.g. text to donate – including regular monthly SMS donations), have a look at some of the case studies on our website, or contact us

CTT - As the main technology sponsor, it was great to see so many organisations at the AIME event embracing the ways in which innovative technology can change how they communicate, fundraise and grow their charities.CTT aims to work in partnership with the third sector to support and guide charities to use technology to enhance the way they work and collaborate. We do this through a range of donated technology, fundraising, communications and campaigning services. Contact us, to see how we can help you.

Connect Assist - This Connect Assist Discussion Paper investigates the role and potential of digital delivery in the third sector, the value it can add together with the challenges and costs involved, and the steps you can take now towards its effective implementation. Our aim in all these papers is to stimulate debate around critical issues, and to share insights on how the third sector can continue to thrive in challenging times. Many readers have contributed their own thoughts on the topics we have raised, via the Connect Assist website or direct to me. We greatly value their fresh perspectives on these critical matters. Please feel free to join in the debate yourself. Download free paper here

Three - Three were delighted to be the networking sponsor of AIME’s Empowering the Charitable Sector with Interactive Technologies conference. We have extensive experience of working with charities and businesses supporting this sector and understand many of the technology and cost saving challenges faced today. In particular we have helped many organisations use technology to take and process donations securely using Mobile Broadband. Our network is an award winning advanced 3G network, the biggest 3G network in the UK. Why not get in touch with either Colin Mayson (South), 07846 472466, or John Chambers (North), 07868 971683, to find out more.

Giles Insurance - Most charities rely on technology through the running of websites, on-line donations, sale of merchandise and back-office systems. Charities hold large quantities of personal information making them potential targets for hackers. IT security and protection of information are important for any charity but should you suffer a system failure or breach of personal information specialist insurance can help limit the financial loss. Through their dedicated team, Giles acts for thousands of charity and not for profit clients, across all areas of the voluntary sector. Giles offer all charities a free audit to ensure that they are paying a competitive premium with adequate cover such as, Cyber Liability, Fundraising, Volunteers, Adequate Professional Indemnity etc.