A few weeks back, I was interviewed by Cameron Reilly, on his Podcast, G’Day World. After we got through the normal mobile marketing stuff, we got a bit more eclectic and I told the story of John Newman, which I knew would be the kind of thing Cam likes - and presumably his audience.
John Newman started his life as a drunkard and “blasphemer” before surviving a terrible storm at sea and found religion. Incredibly, almost his first job *after* his conversion was Captain of a slave ship and despite the terrible suffering below decks, he saw no contradiction at the time between his faith and his profession.
Years later, he became a clergyman and actually campaigned with William Wilberforce to successfully end slavery and also penned the hymn Amazing Grace, with the words “I was blind/And now I see” - a is a clear reference to being able to see how misguided his tacit support of slavery had been.
The point of this anecdote was to ask what are we doing today that our descendants will look back on in disbelief and ask themselves how on earth we could have done that, thinking it was normal, or certainly harmless.
Cameron suggested that allowing millions of people to live in poverty and die of hunger would be high on his list for nomination and recommended I read “Bono on Bono”, which makes this point pretty convincingly. I did actually buy it, but ironically, it was immediately stolen. So I need to get hold of another copy.
Anyway, this got me thinking and talking to a few people. And the overwhelming response was that more people would do more and indeed, give more, if the funds weren’t pocketed by corrupt officials - the very compatriots of the people dying and suffering around them. This is hard to argue with as corruption does seem to be endemic and anyway, so many people believe it to be fact, that you can’t convince them otherwise, without a paradigm shift.
So, I’ve been mulling this over and as I wrote earlier today, I attended the ForumOxford Future Technologies Conference last week. Simon Cavill of Mi-Pay was demoing a product that allows migrant workers in say, the Middle East to send money securely by SMS to their families at home, where it can be cashed in or banked. This is cheaper, quicker and ironically more secure where the banking systems are corrupt, inefficient or just don’t exist.
But it got me thinking. Supposing that we could donate money to people “direct”, cutting out the middle men, Quango’s, Governments and liggers who all want their piece of the pie.
Supposing that we could send direct to those in need enough money to buy say, mosquito nets (3 million people a year die of malaria) or basic other tools or food? This would mean mean that the mobile could empower the people for whom the aid is intended and (barring a few transaction fees) would start, bit by bit, to change the world.
Sure, there’s issues to solve. But with mobile phone access exploding in the third world, Nicolas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child project poised to distribute hundreds of millions of machines to needy kids (meaning the same technology and principles of direct donation could be used) and even the growth of “village” phones, distribution of technology is well on its way to being cracked.
The main issue that I would see is getting the money “off” the phone to spend it, but certainly in urban areas, the infrastructure is there.
So, if you’re one of the people who feel ambivalent about donating to these sorts of charities, would this kind of idea change your mind, if you could be sure that your money was going straight to those who need it?
And if you’re in the mobile payments business, perhaps this is an idea you could encourage or nurture.
I saw your excellent post over at Forum Oxford - given the opportunity I’m certain more people would do a lot more not only because there would be the assurance that they weren’t feeding corruption but also wouldn’t the rewards be so much more gratifying?
As evidence of this take a look at the way in which leading charities have all got adoption communities (eg. London Zoo http://www.zsl.org/info/support-us/adopt-an-animal,174,AR.html) which involve those who donate by keeping them personally connected to the recipient within their charity (eg. a particular baby panda etc).
I feel the mobile involvement in this will transform the world but not just in the direct donation of money but in the provision of things much more empowering, just imagine…
…the ability for a UK based Veterinarian to help a small African rural farmer with personalized advice on animal husbandry
…for an American Engineer to help a Indian builder to improve his well building technique or fix his tractor engine
…for an Australian Doctor to help a Chinese nurse to provide more informed and better quality care within a region effected by a contagious disease
…a Spanish lawyer to help monitor human rights in South America
…a German business person to help a small business person to succeed in Russia
I know from personal experience that this is very rewarding for professional people and have a very good friend who is an eye surgeon and travels to Africa every year to give the gift of sight to people who could not otherwise afford it. By making it easier to begin giving I’m sure a lot more people will participate in this in this type of activity and the rewards would most importantly ensure that this help continues into the long term.
I wonder if Make Poverty History have thought of bringing into existence such a pairing service for mentor/sponsors?
A good way to get money directly to people who are very likely to put it to good use (and even return it back) is to offer them a microloan. To do that cost-efficiently, a very good way is to use Kiva’s website (www.kiva.org), where you can select a given entrepreneur in the developing world and lend her/him as little as a few dozen dollars. They are also planning to incorporate mobile technology as well to allow feedback from the ground to reach the lenders.
Great responses already I see.
Some points:-
I think the remote end (i.e. receiving of advice/money) needs to have a mobile solution, primarily. But the giving end (assuming it’s in richer, “westernised” countries) the focus could be more on the web side for ease of interaction.
I think people need to be convinced their money is not going to, or being intercepted by, con men, charlatans or other corruption. I think it is impossible to avoid this 100% but I think the structure of any “giving” service needs to cater for this. I think the general idea of giving directly to many individuals, who have been identified as individuals (e.g. targeting specific phone numbers) is the right approach - entrusting one or a few people on the recieving side with money or advice intended for many opens the way to corruption unfortunately.
I think real feedback from the individual recipient of money/advice is a really good idea, and making it public stops givers from feeling like they’ve thrown something into a black hole. (I’m thinking a scrolling feed like AdMob has for ads on the front page, but with history, and clickable links to more details). Again, the infrastructure of the service could support this, matching feedback with stuff sent via the recipient’s mobile number.
By the way, I am actively interested in and looking at building a software service to do something like this if possible and more, ideally on a non-profit basis, so if anyone’s interested, please get in touch.
Alex Kerr
MD, PhoneThing Ltd.
email: alex@phonething.com
website: http://www.phonething.com
David - yes, I’ve posted about Kiva before. I’m a fan too http://mobhappy.com/blog1/2006/12/08/kiva-just-wow/
Alex -thanks for the comment. Good points.
Russell
Russ, raising money via mobiles is something I’ve been exploring with one of my hosts, Father Bob Maguire (fatherbob.thepodcastnetwork.com) for a long time. Father Bob is one of Australia’s genuine social entrepreneurs. Aside from his work as a Catholic priest, about 30 years ago he established an organisation called “Open Family” which gets kids off the streets.
On the show that he does on The Podcast Network, we’ve been discussing 21st century ways to raise funds for this kind of work. We tried PayPal but not enough of the audience had accounts and they are a pain to set up. So next we tried mobiles. We surveyed the audience and many of them said they would be prepared to add $5 or $10 to their monthly mobile bill as a donation to further Bob’s work. It sounds easy to do and its a “set and forget” model.
HOWEVER… once we started talking to the mobile providers in Australia, we quickly found out that about 80% of each donation would be lost to the middlemen. The mobileco (in this country it’s Telstra) and the middleware providers take a HUGE chunk.
If someone out there would build a service that enabled people to add $5 to their monthly mobile charge but didn’t want to take $4 of it, I think we’d have a model.
I have been thinking more about your question Russell.
http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2007/04/21/cams-world-for-21-april-2007/
Re raising money via mobile (and do other “good” things), have a look at the good folks from Rights Group (www.rights-group.com).
I have also blogged on the whole issue, partly in response to a NY Times article that considered the cost issue (http://volkersthoughts.blogspot.com/2007/04/using-power-of-mobile-for-good-causes.html). Check it out.