Charities Reach Advocates Via Cellphone

March 21, 2010 | Read Time: 1 minute

Text messagesing show promise as a tool for advocacy, according to a new report that looks at the results of six organizations’ mobile programs.

The report was published by M+R Strategic Services, a consulting company in Washington, and MobileActive.org, a network of activists and nonprofit groups that are focusing on ways to incorporate cellphones into advocacy work.

When the groups in the study sent out a text message to people on their mobile lists asking them to call a “decision maker,” such as a lawmaker or corporate executive, 4.7 percent of recipients made the call. The response rate for e-mail messages that asked recipients to call a policy maker was 0.92 percent, according to the 2009 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study, also published by M+R Strategic Services.

To read the report: Go to http://mobilebenchmarks.org.

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About the Author

NICOLE WALLACE

Features Editor

Nicole Wallace is features editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy. She has written about innovation in the nonprofit world, charities’ use of data to improve their work and to boost fundraising, advanced technologies for social good, and hybrid efforts at the intersection of the nonprofit and for-profit sectors, such as social enterprise and impact investing.Nicole spearheaded the Chronicle’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts on the Gulf Coast and reported from India on the role of philanthropy in rebuilding after the South Asian tsunami. She started at the Chronicle in 1996 as an editorial assistant compiling The Nonprofit Handbook.Before joining the Chronicle, Nicole worked at the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs and served in the inaugural class of the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps.A native of Columbia, Pa., she holds a bachelor’s degree in foreign service from Georgetown University.