Charity Goes Mobile to Appeal to Young

25.06.11

Never miss a party, Ms. Lublin stepped outside to learn that a few minutes earlier, staff had sent a simple text message of 500 adolescents - "Santa Cause said launch a collection of food communities Tackle Hunger ur 4" - an annual food drive that benefits the network of local food banks affiliated with Feeding America.

The messages went to adolescents who were more or less "dead", meaning that his organization, do something, had not heard from them in some time. For this call via text, some 20 percent returned to the fold in nine minutes. "It was crazy," saysLublin said.

Right then and there, she decided to do something, a national nonprofit that works to involve youth in civic activities, had to go mobile. Could no longer count on its website to encourage young people to take part in social activism. Instead, it would rely on mobile technology in the hope of substantially increasing its reach and impact.

"I want us to be the AARP for 13 to 18 years together," she said recently.

The goal is to use mobile technology to sign up 3.8 million members in 2014, against 1.2 million in 2010 who were involved in at least one of the more than 50 "campaigns" Do Something runs each year. Recently, for example, teenagers ran the readers who have raised nearly two million pounds are given to public schools in New Orleans. "We need things that do not require money, an adult or a car," said Ms. Lublin.

Adolescents become members by completing a proposed project to do something or that they created themselves, uploading photos or other evidence of their efforts to the website of the organization.

"Teenagers are, on average, more than 3,300 books per month, and their phones are a part of their social fabric," said Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn and a new member of the Board Do Something. "I am convinced that the best way to move teen philanthropy to a new level in terms of scale and efficiency.

Source: The Ledger