PayPal Mobile Adds Charitable Donations

PayPal, eBay’s online-payment service, has introduced PayPal Mobile 2.5, a new version of its application for Apple’s iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. The updated version of the PayPal app allows users to donate to their favourite charities.

The 2.5 version of the application, announced on 18 August, allows users to donate to more than 23,000 charities in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, according to a blog post by Laura Chambers, senior director of PayPal Mobile.

“As adoption of smartphones increases, donating via the mobile is also becoming more popular,” wrote Chambers. “We hope the new application will simplify the donation process and help charities reach more donors.”

Charitable partners

Organisations participating include the American Cancer Society, Save the Children, UNICEF, BBC Children in Need, and Cancer Research UK. If users would like to benefit the care of people with autism, they can also donate to the Autism Speaks charity.

PayPal’s partners on the app include MissionFish, a company that helps nonprofit firms raise money through eBay, and Artez Interactive, an online fund-raising site.

A study by the Pew Research Center in July 2010 revealed that 11 percent of Americans have made a charitable donation through text messaging.

The app allows users to search for charities and share donation information on Facebook. It even lets users bump their iPhone with other users to send money.

Chambers expects PayPal Mobile 2.5 to appear in the iTunes App Store by the end of August.

PayPal has also released a Facebook app called FundRazr to facilitate donations through PayPal. Various online charities such as the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society take texting donations though a mobile donations provider called mGive. According to a Nielsen poll, 13 percent of respondents donated to help recovery from the January Haiti earthquake through text messaging.