News & Events > Lasa Technology Events 2012

Lasa Mobile Technology Summit 2012

By Lasa Information Systems Team

The Lasa Mobile Technology Summit held at JustGiving on 17th July 2012 brought together people and organisations from across the third sector to talk about how to make the most of mobile technology and share tips and experiences.

After an introductory presentation from JustGiving's Liz Kessick, a panel discussion chaired by Lasa's Aba Maison examined mobile usage from a number of angles. Our panellists, who then ran workshops, were:

• Philip Anthony, Director, Co-Operative Systems
• Robin Christopherson, Head of Inclusion, AbilityNet
• Paulette Elliott, Director, Huduma
• Paul de Gregorio, Head of Mobile, Open Fundraising

Read Philip Anthony's thoughts on smart devices and their impact on organisations in his knowledgebase Get Smart article.

Robin Christopherson examines the benefits of inclusive design of websites and provides tips in his knowledgebase article Is Ignoring Inclusive Design For Dummies?

We will be putting more resources from the day on this page and welcome comments to the article on how we take things forward.

Mobile Donation Revolution

The event was kicked off by Elizabeth Kessick, Head of Insight at Just Giving; key points from her Mobile Donation Revolution presentation (pdf, 1.4Mb) included:

Three essentials that most people don’t leave home without – keys, wallet, mobile phone

• 52% of phones are now smartphones
• 100% increase in smartphone ownership in past year
• 32% of all web browsing is done on a mobile device
• 28% of people have bought something online on a mobile

Donations:

• 8% of the population contribute 47% of all donations to charity
• Cash is still the most popular form of donation
• Online accounts for 7% of donations
• 20% use text (SMS) donations

Use of mobiles:

• Web browsing on a mobile device is different from a PC or laptop
• "Snacktime" – people browse in their breaks (or sometimes on the loo! – which has led to the use of advertising on the back of toilet doors…)
• need to make it as easy as possible for potential donors
• 30% of visits to JustGiving.com are via mobiles – that’s nearly 2m/month

Slacktivism

Good for emergency appeals (e.g. US Red Cross raised $8m in 48 hours following the Haiti earthquake)

Mobile site:

• Test on as many different devices as possible
• Brief info, call to action, contact, news
• Links to PayPal to make it as easy as possible (i.e. don’t have to input card details)

Just Text Giving

• free donation service from JustGiving
• have signed up 15,000 charities in one year
• great for events and campaigns (e.g. can advertise at the end of an event – one example given where £5000 was raised instantly just by using SMS)

Mobile websites

• Web developers in the US now have a “mobile first” strategy
• If more than 15% of visits to website are from mobiles then probably need to have a separate mobile site 

 

What people had to say about the event

Hear Liz Kessick talking about why charity websites need to be mobile ready and other panellists at Audioboo:

• Read about it on Storify
• Paul Di Gregorio's blog
• Institute of Fundraising blog report by Zoe Amar
• Article on Third Sector
• Report on Civil Society IT

 

Where do we go now?

Participants said they would do the following after the event:

• Share information with colleagues
• Put passcodes on mobile devices
• Update Acceptable Use Policies to include Bring Your Own Device
• Test how website looks on multiple mobile devices
• Look at at low cost ways of raising funds through mobile
• Disseminate W3C link re mobile web best practices
• Can we get mobile companies to reach out more to charities?

The third sector should:

• Experiment more with mobiles
• Have sector-specific resources - the knowledgebase can help here, and we encourage commenting to build up knowledge
• More education

In a final round-up, participants also said they loved their mobile devices for the following reasons:

• Work and entertainment
• Speaks to my geek!
• Maps
• Sat nav
• Group text messaging
• Blackberry Messenger (BBM)
• Too useful to throw away
• Social media
• Twitter
• Music
• Multi-channel
• Audiobooks while jogging
• Camera
• What doesn't it give me?

Future events

This event was one of a series being organised by Lasa during 2012 - see Lasa's Technology Events page for information.