Tulsa World: Mobile app may benefit charities

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Mobile app may benefit charities

CHARITYCALL
Bob Jones and Ron Siegenthaler: They believe nonprofits can benefit from the mobile technology of CharityCall.

By LAURIE WINSLOW World Staff Writer
Published: 10/24/2009 2:22 AM
Last Modified: 10/24/2009 5:13 AM

A new mobile technology aims to help individuals make donations to their favorite charity by using their smart phones and iPhones.

Launched this month, CharityCall aims to help charities reach out to an increasingly mobile public.

This mobile platform is the brainchild of Bob Jones, a former Tulsan.

"Today in the wireless arena the proliferation of smart phones is just phenomenal. It's a shocking growth rate. Literally tens of millions of live smart phones are in the marketplace today," said Jones, founder and president of CharityCall. "People are carrying their computers in their pockets, so we endeavored to build a platform using what's become very popular in the way of mobile applications."

A smart phone is a mobile phone that offers advanced capabilities and often operates like a miniature personal computer, providing Internet access among other things.

Jones has a 28-year history in the development and marketing of various telecommunications-based offerings. In 1981, he helped co-found Xeta Technologies Inc., a telecommunications service provider based in Broken Arrow. Today, he lives in semi-retirement in southern California.

Jones said the concept for CharityCall came to him about a year ago when he wanted to make a donation to a particular cause and kept trying to remind himself every time he was on his laptop, but kept forgetting.

He thought if he could make a donation through his phone, he could do it any time of day.

"That was the light bulb that went off in my head to start this process," he said.

Nonprofits have to find a way to reach a general public that is always mobile, Jones said.

Everything is moving to electronics, and the idea of writing checks and sending donations by envelope to charities is fast disappearing, said Ron Siegenthaler, a Tulsan who is CharityCall's executive vice president and primary investor. He also is the chairman-elect of Xeta and the CEO of Myriad Technologies Inc.

"There is an urgency in the nonprofit world to find effective ways to reach out and engage the public," Siegenthaler said.

The cost to charities, which sign a one-year agreement, is less than $10 a day, said Jones. There is no cost to the donor.

Charities subscribe to the service and CharityCall prepares a branded mobile application for their use, said Jones.

The package includes all the templates and marketing tools.

He would like to see about 200 nonprofits sign up in the first year.

CharityCall is available to all qualified and approved 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations that are in good standing with the government.

"This is the first of its kind in the market, and we think that we can raise tens of millions a month if we can help our clients deploy this and use it properly," Jones said.

The mobile donation technology can be accessed from any smart phone or iPhone at m.charitycall.cc.

Users can customize their smart phones to access the CharityCall application in seconds and even set automatic reminders to make regularly scheduled donations.

The application provides a quick, easy, convenient and transparent way to give donations of $25, $50, $75, $100 or an amount of one's choosing by first selecting from a displayed list of charities or causes.

Donations are billed using a PayPal mobile process or via an e-mail invoice.

Among the company's advisers is James R. Jones, the uncle of Bob Jones, who was a former U.S. congressman for Oklahoma, U.S. ambassador to Mexico and now is a partner with Manatt Phelps & Phillips LLP in Washington, D.C.

Other advisers include Ron Barber, one of the founders of Tulsa-based law firm Barber & Bartz, and Robert Hisrich, director of the Global Entrepreneurship Center at the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Ariz.

Laurie Winslow 581-8466
laurie.winslow@tulsaworld.com By LAURIE WINSLOW World Staff Writer

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