Holiday Giving From the Heart, With Your Phone

The idea of charity may begin at home, but the act of giving this holiday season may start and end with a simple smartphone. Is This Thing On?, or ITTO, is our Wednesday column showing how everyday people use technology in unexpected ways. Charities and churches are moving to mobile donations as people increasingly use smartphones for virtually everything but talking, and for-profit companies are stepping in with ways to make donations easier for consumers and more beneficial to non-profits. The Salvation Army is probably the most visible example this holiday season, with its traditional red-bucket campaign featuring bell ringers positioned in strategic shopping locations. The venerable institution is testing smartphones that accept a credit card swipe using technology from mobile payment start-up Square. Users in four cities can make contributions using a credit card and smartphone rather than scrambling for spare change and dropping it into the red kettle. “A lot of people just don’t carry cash anymore,” said Maj. George Hood, the Salvation Army’s spokesman, to the New York Times. “We’re basically trying to make sure we’re keeping up with our donors and embrace the new technologies they’re embracing.” The pilot program with Square replaces last year’s effort involving traditional credit card terminals near its well-known red kettles, which only generated $60,000 of the $142 million received nationwide from the red kettle program, according to Hood. The Salvation Army is betting this year’s partnership with Square, which uses a small credit card reader plugged into an Android smartphone, donated by wireless carrier Sprint, will prove more popular and convenient for holiday shoppers. Users who opt-in can swipe their credit card, sign the touchscreen and decide if they want their receipt sent via text or email. The program, which launched in November, also can collect contact information for future fund-raising campaigns and help the established charity, in operation since 1865, to connect with a younger audience. Square, which uses credit cards people are already familiar with, is in direct competition with near-field communication, or NFC, technology, which often requires specially-equipped phones and merchant readers. NFC is behind the Google Wallet application, which is currently available on select smartphones and allows users to touch a payment terminal with an NFC-ready smartphone to transfer funds. NFC is also being tested by a 140-member-strong carrier consortium called Isis, which offers a rival to Google Wallet and is facilitating an industry-wide standard to promote overall adoption. NFC is also gaining traction with church and charity groups. MobileCause, which has worked with 1,000 charities to set up mobile giving programs, hopes to take advantage of NFC to aid in mobile payments.