Snack-Sized Donations

The Smith Family is an Australian charity that helps disadvantaged children afford basic items such as school uniforms, education and school trips. When it researched its client donor database, it identified the 25-35 year old audience as a high-value donor segment. They were educated professionals, with a high disposable income.

Online and mobile were identified as the priority channels to reach this market. To reach this market was easy, the challenge was to inspire donation.

Group reasearch sessions found that this market is attracted to low-commitment lives. They want to keep their options open. Long-term commitments like a monthly donation are a major barrier. If they could make a one-off donations of $5, $10, or $20 there was no anxiety linked with having to decide how much to donate.

The donation process also had to be quick. The time between deciding to donate and completing the action needed to be seconds not minutes. This led to the idea of Snack-sized Donations, a new mobile donation system that allowed for pre-set snack-sized donation using reverse billing.

The donation platform used mobile banners on Vodafone Live (830,307 impressions served), SMS (5,000 of the 25-30 target audience), mobile search, and press releases which led to the promotion being picked up by the blogosphere. In the short-term, the platform managed to influence 7,023 individuals to trial a completely different method for donation.