July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Be honest, when last have you donated to a nonprofit? Or how often have you intended to donate, but simply forgot due to a convoluted donation process?

RAZ Mobile is betting that its new mobile fundraising platform, which is launching today, could be the ticket to solving the nonprofit fundraising woes. You use its platform to make donations right from your smartphone, and it also gives nonprofits a mobile presence complete with social media integration, real-time analytics, and feedback about donors.

“The primary product today for mobile fundraising is text to give, but that’s only open to the largest nonprofits, carriers don’t tell you who people are, you can’t thank them, and donations are capped at $10,” said RAZ Mobile chief executive Dale Knoop in an interview with VentureBeat.

With RAZ Mobile, Knoop sought to fix all of the problems with text to give. The company’s platform lets you store credentials, so you can easily make repeated donations and donate to a variety of nonprofits. Donors get an email thanking them immediately, and RAZ also sends 100 percent of the donations to nonprofits. Can also share their donation on social media, potentially attracting more donations from their friends.

The company charges $29 a month to access its mobile platform, and it takes an additional charge from the total amount of donations made every month — starting at 5.9 percent for up to 1,000 donations, and 3.9 percent beyond 1,000. RAZ specifically decided not to touch the money during donation processing after banking industry officials made them aware of the additional federal scrutiny that involved.

“Even at the 5.9 percent level, RAZ offers about a 70 percent cost savings per dollar raised versus the average cost of all other donation tactics,” Knoop said.

RAZ Mobile launched in August 2011 and has so far been working with non-profits around Kansas, including the Kansas City Ronald McDonald House, Stop Hunger Now, and Love Fund for Children.

The Overland Park, Kansas-based company has raised $1.1 million in angel funding so far.