According to statistics the number of cell phone subscribers worldwide reached 4.1 billion in 2009 .
Cell phones are used in Africa as mobile wallets and are helping in solving development difficulties.
This method has being PROOVED SUCCESSFULL in fundraising, that is why IS USED IN ALL MAJOR FUNDRAISING EVENTS .
Allready donation through SMS is used by some UN bodies – departments (exampleUNICEF India) to raise funds .
But it is not yet a common practice for UN fundraising .
However , in my opinion , it should be .
And if it should , the soonest it will become the better will be , as you understand .
So Why donation by SMS can be so usefull ?
It is the easiest way for anybody to send a small amount of money .
I suppose not all , but many of these subscribers Do have these 3 extra “coins” to get charged for a fundraising SMS , and they might never go to a bank and donate money to a UN body account , or donate online to UN , or buy a UN gift .
Especialy , when ,in my opinion , there is lack of promotion for these services , something that the UN should improve .
And this suggestion is about that too .
Just Calculate it .
If you get 0,001 % of all these people send a message in a day , they will donate a total of 41000 “credits” .
This is something that can be done , if these numbers , are promoted to the public enough , so they can memorize them .
However we can give another not so optimistic ( in fact the 0,001% does not allow us to call it the most optimistic ) if compared example.
If 0,0001 would donate this “credit” in a day then , they will have donated 4100 “credits” .
An amount that compared to the 4.1 million might sound small ,but if you calculate every credit as
0,5 euro (in Dec 2009 for a UNICEF fundraising event in Greece it was 1€ per SMS) this makes us a total of
0,5×4100 = 2.200€ , enough money to buy vaccines for 100 children .
The 0,001 % gives 22000€
The 0,01 % gives 220.000€
The 0,1 % gives 2.200.000 (2.2 million) €
The 1% gives 22.000.000 (22 million) €
What UN can do with these money ??
With 55€ UNICEF pays vaccines ro combat poliomyelitis for 300 Children
with 100€ UNICEF pays 2.200 ORS packets to help combat dehydration caused by diarrhea .(According to UNICEF, diarrhea kills some 1.5 million Children under the age of 5 annually , some 50 million Children have been saved thanks to the low cost treatment of oral rehydration salts in the past 25 years.)
With 52€ UNHCR pays a tent for 5 People that have lost their House
With 70€ UNHCR gives adequate food to 20 Pregnant Woman
With 79€ UNHCR gives one emergency survival kit for a Family
250€ are enough for opening a well that will give clean drinkable water to refugees.
416€ are enough to give adequate food to 50 Chlidren
and these if the charge of the SMS is 0,5€ , i repeat that in Dec 2009 for a UNICEF fundraising event in Greece it was 1€ per SMS
Even if the 1% of the total number of cellphone subscribers SMS’s funds per day , will never be reached ,
with a good promotion it might be possible to reach this number per week , or even per month .
Even if this number will be reached only per year , a plus of 22.000.000€ is not the amount of money that can be ignored .
Offcourse I believe that the mobile network operators , will offer their services for that cause .
Allready in Greece Doctors Without Borders have reached an agreement with a mobile network operator , that gives them the 2€ from the 2,38€ charged SMS
The way this system works makes it possible for the donor to make the donations to the UN body that he or she prefers .
It is possible to do that by sending a specific message.
example UN UNCHR or UN UNICEF and so on
Promotion of these numbers after their creation is the most important thing to do
Some numbers that show how affective promotion combined with low price is
beer sales 2007 only in US 212 million
more than 50 billion beverage servings of all types are consumed everyday worldwide ,from those 1.5 bilion are trademarks owend by one company
1,5 billion the day !!
Donating is not a product , but from the fund raising events , we can see the promotions of these activities are using similar methods.
The event is promoted by the major media , TV Radio Internet , it is promoted as a must do event that , many and different people are doing it , it is often promoted as a “cool thing to do” , many famous people are doing it too ,it is possible to do it with few dollars , and it will make you feel good.
In the case of fundraising it is not a shame to promote it like that ,
cause sharing and helping it is a must thing to do .
Fundraising events although are promoted a lot , are not long lasting , and the period that somebody can SO EASILY donate a small amount of money for a good cause , ends soon.
A special number that gives the ability to the citizents to donate by SMS extends this period making it easier for the citizents , better for those that they have the need .
Help to propose this to the officials in the UN by participating in the discussion.
message
