To kick us off, mobile mobile mobile.   Everybody’s got a phone in their pocket, and increasingly it’s a pretty intelligent one.  The iPhone, Blackberry, Android and others are taking over the market, and shaking up the status quo.  Assume that people are looking for and engaging with you while on the go, not just while sitting at their desk.

Some things to know:

1. Compose your emails for easy reading on a mobile device. Send a test and check it out on a Blackberry and iPhone.  Some Blackberry users are reporting a lack of patience with graphic emails because it takes too much time to wade through.  “Give me the bullet points and important information straight up and in brief” seems to be the attitude.
2. Start learning about fundraising via mobile. I just made my first donation by text message to a radio show I love, This American Life, when I saw a tweet.  $5 went on my AT&T bill. So easy!  Check out http://www.mobilegiving.org/ to see how they do it.  Sophist Productions has been hosting events (a UJA Young Leadership cocktail party, for example) where people “text to pledge” their donation, and pledges are projected on the wall. Yes, it is a new world.  And it works.  Read more here on text-to-give programs.
3. Redesigning or tuning up your website?  Make sure you’ve got a mobile friendly version. Check out a Google tool here to see what your web site can look like on a mobile browser. Beth Kanter iPhone-ized her blog with an easy $200 IPhone app tool.  Learn about it here.
4. Twitter was conceived of, and largely used as a mobile tool. Thus, don’t neglect this community when you are putting together a mobile strategy.

Want to learn more?

http://mobileactive.org/ is a great org with useful resources and a discussion list on how nonprofits are using mobile in their work.

http://www.mobilecommons.com/ offers services for marketing, advocacy and fundraising via mobile (and thanks to Mobile Commons for donating their services for our Boot Camps)

http://www.mobilecitizen.org/ has excellent resources for mobile use in education and nonprofits.

Great resources from Wild Apricot: Is Your Nonprofit Website Mobile-Friendly?

Examples of cool, mission-centric mobile uses from nonprofits, on Beth Kanter’s Blog

But as I think about mobile fundraising campaigns, etc. I remain somewhat skeptical.  Let me revise that: I feel that the technology is still “in the way”, and as Clay Shirky said this morning, “the tools don’t get socially interesting until they get technologically boring.”  Mobile technology just isn’t boring yet, but it is moving from awkward to interesting.

My conference session evaluation via SMS, on my iPhone

NTEN has engaged Mobile Commons to set up a text message based evaluation system for this conference. That’s right, you TEXT your rating and comments, rather than writing it on paper.  Less paper, easier to compile the data, super convenient.  I was at first confused how it would work, but then I just went for it — texted the session number NTC189 to the short code they gave us 68966. Half a second later the first questions popped up. I entered my rating and hit send.  The next question. IT WAS SO SIMPLE and satisfying. Success.  I do expect that it will take some time before the masses are comfortable with such uses of mobile, but the future will be here shortly, and thus it’s useful for us to learn what the early adopters are doing, and start to dip our toes in the water.

Other examples shared here have been integrated with video, advocacy campaigns, fundraising and more.  What’s the lesson?  Though you may not be using mobile campaigns now, it is the future, and thus you should be collecting your constituents cell phone numbers now. They will come in handy a few months or years down the road.