The Chilean Bible Soci­ety: mobile phone tex­ting campaign

Exhibited by
Gonzalo Ibarra
Added
October 26, 2009
Medium of Communication
Online, telephone.
Target Audience
Individuals, single gift.
Type of Charity
Religion related.
Country of Origin
Chile.
Date of first appearance
September, 2008.

SOFII’s view

SOFII's first exhibit from Chile. This is a very clever use of text messaging with an intriguing involvement device built in, in the form of a Bible knowledge quiz. Each text generates a small donation and increases the sender's bible knowledge, which must suit the Chilean Bible Society very well.

Creator / originator

Gonzalo Ibarra

Summary / objectives

The Bible challenge is a new mobile phone campaign that aims to raise money by testing people's knowledge of the Bible. A percentage of each text sent to enter this campaign goes towards the work of the Chilean Bible Society.

The campaign will also help to build a database of new contacts.

Background

The Chilean Bible Society introduced this new mobile phone campaign in September 2008.

The campaign challenges people to test their knowledge of the bible by texting the word 'Tudesafio' (your challenge) to the number 2772. They then receive a quote from the Bible together with a multiple choice of the possible authors of the quote. Participants need to reply back with their answer. If it is correct their number is automatically entered into a competition to win a 'compu-biblia', which is a small computer device used to read the Bible.

Each text will cost the participant 290 Chilean pesos – which equates to around 55 American cents. And from each text a percentage will be donated to the Chilean Bible Society.

Results

Not yet known.

Merits

Mobile phone fundraising is still a fairly new fundraising method in Latin America. It will be interesting to see the results from this campaign, whether or not it proves successful. If it works it will be one that many charities can replicate (as long as they have good contacts and contracts with mobile phone companies).

Other relevant information

Further information from Gonzalo Ibarra's website.

View original image
Colourful messages on the Society’s website show how the campaign works and also illustrate the kind of projects that will be supported by the funds raised.