Well, my mother would have been so proud.
She always taught me to stand up for the little guy, and to stand up for what I truly believe in. So although my organization is the little guy in this scenario, although we typically would never publicly call out a corporation, I felt pretty strongly that we needed to have our voice heard.
Basically we launched a "text-to-connect" campaign the day after the Haiti earthquake because that is the only option for mobile we were currently set up for. Users would text in to the short code and get a call back where they would hear a short recorded message from our president detailing the situation in Haiti, and then they would be connected to our call center where they could get additional information or make a credit card donation - just like they would if they had simply used their cell phone to call our 800#.
For some reason Sprint decided that by doing things this way, we were not in compliance with their terms, but I still don't completely understand their reasoning. We never heard from them directly, but were told the bad news that they were threatening to shut us down from our vendor, Mobile Commons.
We signed a letter, explaining that we are a nationally recognized charity, listed on Guidestar, given an A rating from the American Institute of Philanthropy, ranked 22 in the NonProfit Times Top 100 and ranked 32 in the Chronicle of Philanthropy Annual Top 400 List. The letter went on to detail exactly how our program worked and explained how we were not collecting donations on the short code, but simply using the channel as a conduit to deliver people to our call center - the call center is where the donation transaction happened. We were certain it was all a big understanding and as soon as we explained everything Sprint would back off. But we were told a few days later (by Mobile Commons) that our appeal was rejected by Sprint.
I was asked by Mobile Commons to agree to be interviewed by the New York Times, and I felt strongly enough that we were on the right side of the argument that I was willing to do so. After all, we were trying to raise money to help innocent people in Haiti, not using this campaign to fill our own pockets. Read it for yourself, and tell me what you think.
She always taught me to stand up for the little guy, and to stand up for what I truly believe in. So although my organization is the little guy in this scenario, although we typically would never publicly call out a corporation, I felt pretty strongly that we needed to have our voice heard.
Basically we launched a "text-to-connect" campaign the day after the Haiti earthquake because that is the only option for mobile we were currently set up for. Users would text in to the short code and get a call back where they would hear a short recorded message from our president detailing the situation in Haiti, and then they would be connected to our call center where they could get additional information or make a credit card donation - just like they would if they had simply used their cell phone to call our 800#.
For some reason Sprint decided that by doing things this way, we were not in compliance with their terms, but I still don't completely understand their reasoning. We never heard from them directly, but were told the bad news that they were threatening to shut us down from our vendor, Mobile Commons.
We signed a letter, explaining that we are a nationally recognized charity, listed on Guidestar, given an A rating from the American Institute of Philanthropy, ranked 22 in the NonProfit Times Top 100 and ranked 32 in the Chronicle of Philanthropy Annual Top 400 List. The letter went on to detail exactly how our program worked and explained how we were not collecting donations on the short code, but simply using the channel as a conduit to deliver people to our call center - the call center is where the donation transaction happened. We were certain it was all a big understanding and as soon as we explained everything Sprint would back off. But we were told a few days later (by Mobile Commons) that our appeal was rejected by Sprint.
I was asked by Mobile Commons to agree to be interviewed by the New York Times, and I felt strongly enough that we were on the right side of the argument that I was willing to do so. After all, we were trying to raise money to help innocent people in Haiti, not using this campaign to fill our own pockets. Read it for yourself, and tell me what you think.
Published: March 24, 2010
A Catholic charity is still seeking answers after Sprint discontinued a fund-raising effort by text for Haiti.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/technology/25texting.html
