PayPal have teamed up with Weejot and the Alzheimer’s Society to launch a brand new mobile donations service today.
The new service allows UK charities to create free mobile apps for one year, saving each charity the cost of creating a new mobile platform, as well as removing the time needed to optimise their online offering for mobile and touch screen devices. Charities can now set up their own personalised apps in less than an hour.
Integrated into PayPal’s payment service, Weejot Donate also enables people to give spontaneously in response to social media, SMS, email and QR code campaigns. It also allows donors to use their internet browser as opposed to downloading a native app.
As the official launch charity, Alzheimer’s Society will be the first to benefit from extending its fundraising capabilities by deploying Weejot Donate. This will allow the charity to capitalise on the 500% increase in mobile traffic to its website over the last two years.
“The smartphone and the tablet will transform charitable giving over the next few years”, said John Lunn, Global Director of PayPal’s Developer Network. “Weejot Donate is a breakthrough, giving charity supporters a fast and secure way to donate via PayPal wherever they are, while making it amazingly easy for good causes to set up a mobile-friendly appeal. Almost 60% of PayPal donations to Comic Relief this year were from smartphones and tablets. This shows that people love the convenience of mobile giving, even when they’re on the sofa at home watching TV.”
Personally I’m less interested in the charity side per se, and more interested in the fact that it brings mobile payments (or donations) into the reach of charities and by default has the potential to get more consumers used to using their mobiles to make payments.
As Dan pointed out a few days ago too many mobile payments company are talking the talk but not walking the walk. Whilst it’s great to hear about all the innovations which we’ll be using this time next year (actually that was last year, it now is next year!), it’s great news to see a real life working mobile solution. Bravo PayPal, Weejot and the Alzheimer’s Society.
