Go London Go!

Posted by Ben in Innovation, Inspiration, News

Dominic Campbell just sent me a link to a NHS London initiative he’s been working on as part of FutureGov – Go London:

“The Go London social innovation competition is a call for ideas on how to make London more active, the first of its kind to be energised by the groundswell of optimism surrounding London hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012. It is a shared movement to create a city where physical activity is a normal part of Londoners lives and contributes to making London a more livable, sustainable and healthy city.

The project aims to help improve activity levels of everyone by finding out what’s already out there as well as asking people for their ideas on how they think London could become more active. In the same way that stories can come from anywhere to inspire others, and we’ll hope to capture as many of these as possible, simple, life changing ideas can spring up too. Through the creative use of social media Go London hopes to capture as many of these ideas as possible.

Once all submissions are collected, those that are judged to have the most potential will be invited to take part in the Go London social innovation competition at City Hall. This day-long event will help develop these original and creative ideas, resulting in a winning project having the opportunity to become a reality.”

It’s a great idea, building upon the success of Social Innovation Camp and applying it specifically to the area of health, which will no doubt be a priority for the Government with the upcoming 2012 Olympics on London. Indeed, one of the past winners of Social Innovation Camp was Good Gym, which aims to connect good causes and people who want to get fit, so the idea already has a track record of success in the area of health.

Ideas submitted so far include creating Netball or Rounders teams in local green spaces for older women, an incentivised scheme encouraged by employers whereby they offer staff the opportunity to get a free pair of running trainers if they sign up for a specified mileage to walk / run per week, and organising a day of light sports or fitness activities that can be done by parents and children. You can view other ideas here.

It’s definitely worth a look, so whether you want to chatter, inspire others with your story, join in the event or submit a winning idea, get involved in the movement by visiting the site here or following them on Twitter - @Go_London.

Make Your Mark with a Tenner

Posted by Ben in Events, Inspiration, News

I was pleased to see that the fantastic Make Your Mark with a Tenner campaign has been relaunched in 2010.

Make Your Mark with a Tenner loans young people £10 and challenges them to make a profit and make a difference in just one month – March 2010 to be precise. The scheme has been so successful since its launch that Make Your Mark are now guaranteeing even more students the opportunity to show what they can do with a humble £10 investment.

Last year’s highlight’s include Henry from St Thomas’s Church, who decided to raise money for a library project in Kenya by putting on a fashion show and managed to turn £10 into £736.77:

“After first being concerned he wouldn’t have time to get involved, Henry then launched himself into a one-man entrepreneurial venture which took him outside of his comfort zone. He knew that it was his chance to get involved making money for a project that had a special place in his heart. Using his Tenner capital to rent the perfect outfit – a 1920s bathing suit! – Henry challenged the members of his church and friends to pay money for him to model during the show. By creating a sophisticated promotional plan, Henry made profits well above his target amount and delighted his audience by strutting his stuff at the show, showing a real sense of fun and marketing nous!”

You can have a look at last year’s winning entries to find out about the other entrants and you can find out more about how your school can enter the competition through the Make Your Mark website.

Launching Social Impact Camp

Posted by Ben in Bright One, Events, Innovation, News

Late last year we announced the launch of some new meetups that we’re setting up through Bright One: Social Impact Camp.

Not sure about what Social Impact is? Wikipedia describes it as: “In business and government policy, social impact refers to how the organisation’s actions affect the surrounding community.”

Over recent weeks there has been a lot of discussion both on and offline about measuring social impact – check out Rob Greenland’s blog to see just one example of some of the debate that’s happening.

Seeing some of the good work that Will McInnes et al have done with Measurement Camp, we were inspired to set up Social Impact Camp.

Social Impact Camp is a monthly meet up for people to discuss different ways of measuring social impact. We compare tactics, think of ways to improve it and wonder if there will ever be a standard set of metrics against which to judge success by.

We drink tea, sometimes we eat biscuits too. It’s a friendly place, we don’t try and sell to each other; instead we’re honest, pretty and will never wear name tags.

We’ve set up a Social Impact Camp Wiki-Page and you can sign up to attend the first Social Impact Camp on the events page. There’s over 20 people signed up to come along to the first event already!

The first Social Impact Camp is being run in partnership with UnLtdWorld – the social networking site that connects social entrepreneurs to the people, tools and information they need to change the world. Here are the details:

• Date: Wednesday 20th January 2010
• Time: 6:00 – 8:00 pm
• Location: UnLtd, 123 Whitecross Street, EC1Y 8JJ

We look forward to seeing you all there for some great conversation!

(And lots of biscuits)

Downing Tweet

Posted by Ben in Inspiration, News

I was lucky enough to be invited to the inaugural #DowningTweet party, through my work with Twestival (thanks for the invite, @amanda!), which took place at 10 Downing Street.

We were there to support the www.millionmums.org campaign, which aims to stop women from pregnancy or childbirth-related complications around the world.  As @SarahBrown10, Global Patron of the White Ribbon Alliance (the organisation behind the Million Mums campaign), writes in The Huffington Post, a woman dies every minute of every day from pregnancy or childbirth-related complications around the world, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia. Over 80% of these deaths are easily preventable – women are dying needlessly, not for lack of a cure, but because they can’t get healthcare.

Those who sign up to the campaign and donate £1 or more will be sent a special Million Mums white ribbon pin. You can check out the website at www.millionmums.org and follow them on Twitter at @WRAGLOBAL

As with the various tweetups that happen on a regular basis now (Twestival, nfpTweetup, etc), the event had a great mix of people from different backgrounds. Below are a few photos so you can see what took place:

It was also great to meet the team behind @WRAGlobal, who tweet out the maternal mortality campaign messages to reach grassroots members in 143 countries. #DowningTweet was the latest idea to raise awareness about all these needless deaths, and how simple it is to stop them.

I also got to meet Damien, the guy behind @HelpSaveBees, a campaign that aims to help raise general awareness about the plight of our native British Bees, particularly our Bumblebees, and how much it would affect us all if they continue to become extinct at their present rate.

All in all a fantastic evening and I’ll be wearing my white ribbon in aid of Million Mums with pride – make sure you get yours and sign up to the campaign too!

Future 100 Social Entrepreneurs

Posted by Ben in Bright One, News

You might have heard this already via the Bright One blog, but  this week it was announced that I’ve included as of the Future 100 Young Social Entrepreneurs of the Year.

The Future 100 Awards puts the spotlight on young people aged 18-35 who are demonstrating entrepreneurial flair and innovation in running a responsible business venture; one which demonstrates a balance between economic, environmental and social goals to achieve ultimate business success.

Here’s a complete list of the Future 100: http://www.stridingout.co.uk/latest-news/future-100

I’ve also created a list of the Future 100 on Twitter: http://twitter.com/benrmatthews/future100

Although it’s my name up there, I just wanted to say to all of Bright One’s volunteers and supporters that this is an award for all of us at Bright One to share, as without their enthusiasm, energy and dedication, Bright One wouldn’t be in the position it is today, helping the charitable organisations we we work with.

Many congratulations to the other people included in the Future 100!

Sending Out an SMS

Posted by Ben in Innovation, News

Last night I went to an event organised by 160characters and the Mobile Entertainment Forum called Sending Out an SMS: Charities Prepare To Go Mobile.

Although charities have been slow to pick up the potential offered by mobile the barriers to adoption are crumbling. With a growing number and range of successful case studies, the removal of VAT on donations by mobile (see charitytext.org) and with the almost total ubiquity of mobile phones, charities need to take a close look at how to make the best of mobile.

This was an especially interesting event, given the news that O2 announced this week, where charities of all sizes will now be able to receive an estimated extra 10p in the pound for text donations of up to £10 made via dedicated 70 prefix short codes.

The speakers on the night were:

• Mike Short – Chairman, Mobile Data Association and VP, O2
• Robert Thurner – Commercial Director, Incentivated
• Andrew Jackson – Head of Client Services, Mobile Interactive Technology (MIT)
• Joe Saxton – founder and driver of ideas at nfpSynergy will talk about ‘Why charities are a great business opportunity for the mobile industry’. Joe is author of the report published in July ‘Sending out an SMS‘.

Organisations present on the night included:

Charities Aid Foundation, Bright One, Amnesty International, Long Reach Mobile, mBlox, MX Telecom, Mobile Entertainment Forum, ITN ON, Vertu, Phonepay Plus, Pay By Mobile, BBC, Water Aid, PayPal, Shelter, Mobile Data Association, O2, Mobile Interactive Technology, Incentivated and nfpSynergy.

Here’s my notes from each of the speeches:

Mike Short – Chairman, Mobile Data Association and VP, O2

There was no interoperability of texting until 1998 and the UK didn’t have shortcodes or cross industry promotion until the early 90s. In 1999, 1 billion text messages were sent in the UK, which rose to 78 Billions texts sent in the UK in 1998. The MDA is expecting more than 2 Billion a week in the UK to be recorded this year, which adds up to over 100 million.

Why haven’t charities benefiited from this uptake? It’s been to do with the mobile industry, the Inland Revenue, and gtting the right processes in place. But now we have the 70 shortcode initative, all operators should fall in line and IR treat everyone equally, with no VAT taken.

Text donations are encouraged by strong national campaigns. For example, with the Tsunami Relief campaign, over 1 million text donations were sent within days. Similar take up has been seen with the  Bhurma Relief and Children in Need campaigns,

O2 recently announced their changes to text giving, with 90p out of every £1 going to the charity. This is not 100% as there are operator costs, such as antifraud, network, and anti-competitive procedures.

Will other operators do the same? With 83 million subscriptions in the UK today, it’s wrong that we’re not giving more to charities by the most efficient way, e.g. text. We now have a mechanism, but we’ve got to do it right

Andrew Jackson – Head of Client Services, Mobile Interactive Technology (MIT)

MIT were involved with March’s Comic Relief campaign, which saw 7.8 million rasied through text donation. Lots of people were happy to donate £5 by text, as this is a nice sum of money. They wouldn’t do this before as they were ashamed to call the phone line and to say down the phone “I’d like to donate £5″. This is seen as too little.

Text giving has taken off because it is anonymous, you can give small amounts , and it is a simple process. texting is simple, easy, quick, second nature, which makes it ideal for a youth audience. For example, during Comic Relief, Radio 1 encouraged £1 donation and made it a fun thing to do.

This kind of take up only really happens for 2/3 big events a year, such as  Comic Relief orChildren In Need. What workes well is giving tangible items that donations will pay for, e.g. a £5 donation will pay for a mosquito net. Charities need to think about what tangible items can people say they have bought through a £5 donation?

Some further tips:

• Select a demographic clearly, e.g. youth audience
• Be flexible and give resource to promotion
• Take the advice of the mobile partners you choose
• Create a WAP site bounce back to donors, encouraging them to sign up via Gift Aid

Robert Thurner – Commercial Director, Incentivated:

The one key driver behind the growth of the mobile industry has been text, which is still growing by over 30% a year. On the consumer side, there are better handsets, flat rate data plans and better content (e.g. social networks).

But what’s holding up charitable giving via text? Firstly, the money that is going to the Inland Revenue rather tha the charity. Secondly, education and awareness on ways to donate, and explaining how it works with other parts of the campaign. Lastly, engagement – what’s the difference the text donation makes?

Charities need good CRM systems, so they can see exactly how donors have responded, then et up bespoke campaigns around this, e.g. thanks for donation, invites to volunteering and events, return donations. Measurement and ROI is also important and should work with CRM databases to undertand other parts of the campaign  mix and add mobile data to this. This gives proof that text donation works and charities can check how effective mobile is compared to other channels. For example, during a recent Macmillan Campaign, 60% of donations came via text, 30% via their call centre, and 10% via post.

Charities also need to think about where they are looking to use text – volunteers, donations, thank you messages, awareness, mobile sites?

Gift Aid is powerful media ally and text is a good tool for internal Comms, a  good way of getting back to people on a regular basis.

MIT also offered charities a free text shortcode, domain and campaign management campaign, so get in touch with them to find out more.

Joe Saxton – founder and driver of ideas at nfpSynergy:

Joe is the author of the ‘Sending Out an SMS’ report, which is available from nfpSynergy. To get an increased take up in text donations, we need case studies, such as Comic Relief, and a need to work on getting charges lower. We’ve made progress, as just 1 year ago of every £1.50 donation only 95p went to charity. Now it’s even better, with O2 announcing that 90p out of every pound donated via text goes to the charity.

The mobile industry should develop a win:win situation with charities. Younger donors are giving in a way they’ve never given before, which means that the mobile industry can get more people giving more money earlier on. But price points have been putting off charities.

Marathons are a fantastic opportunity for text donations. Runners could print shortcodes on their t-shirts. This spontaneity and opportunism can raise £100 million more if implemented next year in time for the London Marathon and is well achievable within 5 year time span

Charities need to get act together though, as lots don’t keep numbers or records or text donors. They need to get other operators to follow O2′s suit and need to get automatic Gift Aid via text bounce back. Currently most charges apply VAT, but as financial transactions don’t attract VAT, neither should text donations. If it just money changing hands, e.g. donation, VAT should be 0%.

It needs to be sustainb;e though, as charities can’t expect operators big or small give special deals. Giving by mobile phone should be integral part of people’s lives, so how can we get more peeple giving more money in more ways than ever before?

There is a real opportunity through a win:win situation – operators, agreggators and charities can all make money through text donations.

My Overall Comments

• Strong, short speeches
• Varied topic matter but common themes
• Needs to be sustainable, e.g. charges / revenue opportunities attractive for operators, agreggators and charities
• Good Q&A debate around rise of apps, integration of mobile into campaigns, fears around safety and added charges

Have you ever donated to a charity via text? If you are a charity, do you receive text donations? If you don’t, will you set up a short code using the new 70 shortcode  service?