Texting to the Red Kettle: an Updated Approach for the Salvation Army

Two local Salvation Army units are enlisting young people to solicit gifts by mixing text messages with the charity’s traditional holiday fund-raising drive.

Instead of asking the volunteers to stand outside and ring a bell in hopes that pedestrians will drop money into one of the Salvation Army’s cast-iron Red Kettles, the charity’s chapters in Dallas and Hampton Roads, Va., are asking loyal supporters to become “mobile bell ringers.”

The charity asks its volunteers to text “bell” to 50555 on their cellphones. They then receive a link on their phone to a mobile Web site where they register, set a donation goal, and enter the mobile-phone numbers of their friends whom they’ve asked to give. These friends then automatically receive a text-message request asking them to confirm that they want to donate $10, a set amount. They have to reply yes when they get the text message to make the donation. The goal for each mobile bell ringer is to ask at least 10 friends to contribute.

To make the appeals more evocative of the old-style approach, mobile bell ringers can download a special ring tone that sounds just like the bell used in the kettle campaign on the street. They can also track donations made on their behalf by friends and their progress against other mobile bell ringers.

“In today’s era, the way to connect with younger donors is through technology, and so we’re using a lot of things to build a stronger social-media program,” says Patrick Patey, spokesman for the Salvation Army Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex Command.

One drawback of the mobile drive is that it’s a multistep process that may take time to get used to for both the volunteer fund raisers and the friends they solicit. It might just be easier to ask friends to say, text “dogood” to 90999, which is another way to donate to the Salvation Army by mobile phone. The text code is based on the charity’s slogan, “doing the most good.”

The history of text-message giving is not very rosy for the two cities doing the experimental run.

At the Dallas-Fort Worth unit, two years’ worth of mobile-phone fund raising garnered less than $3,200. And in Hampton Roads, Va., the Salvation Army brought in just $500 this year, the first time it has run a text appeal.

“It hasn’t brought in tremendous amounts,” admits Matt Pochily, spokesman for the Tidewater Area Command. But he says that fund raising is secondary. “Our goal is more for impressions than it would be monetary right now,” Mr. Pochily says. He hopes that this attempt at reaching out to young donors with new technology will create conversations and a new image for the 145-year-old organization.

“It’s important to find new folks that can be advocates for the Army in their younger age and well into the 21st century,” Mr. Pochily says.