Mobile Phone Fund Raising Campaign

On 11th May, passengers at Farnham Station will be handed a leaflet urging them to download a donation video to their mobiles and to then text GIVE to shortcode 80556 agreeing to be billed five pounds as a donation to the Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice.

With more than 50 million mobile phones in Britain, it was inevitable that a charity one day would begin to use mobile messaging for fund raising purposes. After all, the mobile phone is the one device that we all have and carry, and text and video messaging generates six times more responses than direct mail.

Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice in Farnham is launching the first mobile charity campaign ever in Britain on 11th May and passengers at Farnham station that day will be the first to experience mobile charity marketing.

The campaign has been helped by a grant from Help the Hospices, the UK’s leading charity supporting hospice care, which was funded by the Towergate Charitable Foundation.

Serving a population of more than 600,000 across West Surrey and North East Hampshire, Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice has been offering specialist palliative care to adults facing the end of their lives and to those who love and care for them for the last 30 years. Pallative care is more than just controlling symptoms and pain; it’s a holistic approach that embraces every aspect of the needs and worries of the terminally ill as well as the needs of their families.

Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice is an independent charity and treats 100 patients and families every day of the year at a cost of seven pounds per minute, or £10,000 per day. Only 16% of funds received to cover operational costs come from the NHS. The rest comes from legacies, sales at its 12 charity shops, fund raising events and local businesses.

The mobile campaign is being launched in the background of the Hospice needing to provide more much-needed help and support to patients and their families beyond the physical space of the Hospice. Donations received will help enable it to be more mobile in its operations, providing more care to the terminally-ill in their homes.

“Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice believes that while we can’t add days to life, we can certainly add life to days,” says Elle Georgiou, the charity’s communications manager. “In the Hospice’s 30th birthday year, we’re looking for new and innovative ways to raise the funds we need to achieve our vision of providing specialist care in the location of the patient’s choice, which is usually in the comfort of their own home. We believe that harnessing the immediacy of mobile phone technology to engage with our community could well become an effective way of generating immediate responses and donations.”

The mobile campaign uses the mobile services of mobile marketing company Mediaburst and will be repeated on 18th May at Guildford Station.

Donate, Donate Donate – how it works

By texting HELP to shortcode 84433, users will immediately receive a mobile response containing a link to view a mobile video. After viewing the video, they will be encouraged to donate by texting GIVE to shortcode 80556 and agree to be billed five pounds. They then receive back an SMS thanking them for their donation.