One of the most iconic symbols of holiday giving, the Salvation Army Red Kettle, has entered the digital age.

Since its humble beginnings in 1891, the Salvation Army’s red kettle has become recognizable worldwide. The nonprofit has grown with the times, however, and now offers several mobile giving options, including text-to-give. Through the Salvation Army’s text-to-give program donors can send $10 to the Red Kettle Campaign by texting the word “KETTLE” to 80888.

Are your organization’s supporters or leaders hesitant to embrace mobile marketing strategies, including text-to-give?

Here are six reasons to encourage long-standing ministries and nonprofits to include a mobile strategy as part of their overall digital suite of marketing efforts in 2015:

• Millennials (born between 1980 and 2000) are more likely to donate to a nonprofit directly from a social networking site or through text than any other generation.
• With 60 percent of adults using their phones to browse the internet (Source: Pew Research Center), any charity or ministry that doesn’t have the capacity to receive funds via a mobile device will be at a disadvantage.
• 2015 will be the year when mobile payment platforms become the norm, not a novelty. Starbucks processes 7 million mobile payments a week in the U.S. Apple Pay saw 1 million cards registered in its first three days after launch. And by 2017, there are forecast to be 450 million mobile payment users, up from 245 million at the end of 2013 (Juniper Research, June 2014). (Source: Trendwatching.com)
• Donors are 31 percent more likely to set up a recurring gift if there is an easy way to do so.
• Almost 40 percent of people polled by the financial website GoBankingRates.com said they never write checks anymore, and 20 percent said they write checks only a few times a year.
• Nine in every ten American adults own a mobile phone and may be able to receive a text or short message service (SMS) message, including an incredible 98 percent of adults aged 18 to 29 and 97 percent of folks age 30 to 49, according to the Pew Research Center’s 2014 Mobile Technology Fact Sheet.

It’s one thing to say that mobile is the future, but it’s another to analyze the data and statistics that support that trend. Determining the best mobile strategy to impact and influence your target audience is critical if your organization wants to stay relevant next year and for years to come.