SWEET Online Fundraising Blog

For Nonprofits Mobile Web is better than Apps

Here's a short list of reasons why nonprofits should focus more on making making their websites mobile friendly and less on App development.

1. Creating and Maintaining an App is expensive.
2. Making your existing website mobile-friendly is easy and not so expensive.
3. The  App Marketplace is so cluttered with useless Apps.
4. No one will download an App to donate to you.  For donations, an App can be a barrier.
5. Phones are getting more and more sophisticated on a daily basis.  Many smartphones can render a web page exactly the way it looks in a browser.
6. Leverage the work you've done already on your website by making it more mobile friendly.
7. Unless your App provides some real value, no one will download it.  Getting news and updates from your organization is not real value.

This is not to say that App creation should be abandoned but think creatively and develop an App that people (even ones that are not in your database already) will want to download.  

 

 

Mobile Version of SWEET Pledge Fundraising Website Shows Great Promise

In the online fundraising world, "great promise" means donations.  

In the 1st week after we launched the mobile verison of http://hope.cupidsundierun.com, 60 donations came through from Iphones, Ipads, or Android devices.

Most orgs don't see 60 donations from mobile users in an entire year.

Phones are an ideal platform for Pledge or Peer to Peer Fundraising.  Making it easy for your constituents to raise money for you on the phone should be a top priority at all organizations that depend on public support.