We recently posed a question on LinkedIn, asking people if they have ever made a donation via text. For those who have first-hand experience with text-based giving, we wanted to know what their experiences were. A whopping five people responded (those of interest in this post):

Chaim Shapiro of Innovative Educational Leadership said, "I have not donated through text, but my understanding is that the fees range dependent on the carrier. Some of those rates CAN be more than 15-20%. I don't know if the carriers worked out a special deal when it came to Haiti aid or not. It would be a shame to think millions of dollars went to the cell phone companies rather than the people of Haiti!"

President of Human Nature and Video for a Good Cause, Leslie Birch, said, "One of my clients did this, but they had help with the costs with a communications sponsor."

Digging through blogs, we found a few more first-hand experiences, one worth noting: Bill Barhydt's report.

The bottom line seems to be that text-based giving has a few problems. Our feeling at Artez is anything non-profits can do to encourage donations is a good thing, although perhaps solving some of these issues will encourage more people to support a good cause.

Have you had a good experience with text-based giving? We'd love to hear it! You can also follow the discussion on Twitter @artezonline, or friend us on Facebook.