Salvation Army tries text messages to raise funds

The Salvation Army's ubiquitous holiday bell ringers will have a new tool as they try to raise funds through the holidays — text messaging.

Atlanta-area Salvation Army officials are introducing a program that lets donors give $5 to the charitable organization by sending a text message to a specified number.

Along with putting the familiar red kettles and ringers out about two weeks earlier than the usual Thanksgiving week, it's one way the group's trying to increase giving even as the economy leaves many would-be donors feeling pinched.

"We've been putting kettles out for over a hundred years," said James Seiler, commander of the Metro Atlanta Area Salvation Army. "This year we're gonna try something different."

Beginning in two weeks, cell phone users in the Atlanta area can text message "TSA" — which stands for "The Salvation Army" — to 90999 and a $5 donation will be added to their phone bill.

The number will be posted on signs alongside the familiar shiny red kettles outside 297 locations in the 13-county metro Atlanta region.

Seiler is hopeful the novel new way of giving will appeal to cell phone addicts and be convenient for those who don't keep much change on hand.

"Society in general carries less cash," he said. "It enables people who want to help, who want to support, to hit a few quick buttons on the telephone."

Metro Atlanta is the second region trying the method, according to Melissa Temme, a national spokeswoman for Salvation Army.

A pilot program in Ohio is directing money to about 80 kettles in the Columbus area.

The organization hopes to expand the program nationally by 2009, Temme said.

Times are tough for charity groups across the nation. An October study by GuideStar.org, which tracks nonprofit organizations, found that among 2,927 individuals representing at least 2,730 charitable organizations, 35 percent reported a decrease in gifts during the first nine months of 2008.

That's nearly twice as many as for the same period in 2007.

Nationally, Salvation Army officials are still tallying the effects of job losses and a foreclosure crisis on gifts, Temme said. They don't have a national fundraising goal.

In Atlanta, Seiler said the effects of job losses are clear.

"We are just really feeling the stresses," he said. "We've had instances in the last several months where people who have previously been donors to our organization are now in a position where they have to come to us to seek assistance."

The region raised $1.4 million between Thanksgiving and Christmas 2007. This year's goal is $1.6 million.

Kettles will go out earlier across the state, with Augusta starting Friday.

Eight spots across the Atlanta region will start putting kettles out on Nov. 14.

All 792 kettle locations in Georgia will have a single day kettle drive Saturday; after that, local leaders will decide when to roll out the kettles, with all of them out by the day after Thanksgiving, according to group organizers.

Temme said kettles are going out early in Harrisonburg, Va., and parts of Pennsylvania and Oklahoma.

Nationally, the Salvation Army kicks off its Red Kettle Campaign on Thanksgiving Day.

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