T-Mobile And Orange Play Down Charity Charge Jibes

Eric Doyle, ChannelBiz,

Everything Everywhere drops charges for texted charity donations but claims it did not usually collect anyway

Everything Everywhere has complained that its support for charities has been misrepresented by reports that it imposed a ten percent handling charge on SMS-borne charity donations which was waived by other operators.

The company, which is a joint operation between the Orange and T-Mobile UK networks, claimed that it often absorbs costs such as bank charges and bad debts. It said that it absorbed around £700,000 of costs last year in supporting its partner charities, such as Comic Relief, Children in Need and Unicef.

Charity CEOs Asked For Help

Left Foot Forward's lampoon of Everything Everywhere

This did not stop leading charity CEOs from writing to Nick Hurd MP, the minister for civil society, to ask for help in pressurising Everything Everywhere to withdraw its charges. Signatories included Bruce Leeke of the Institute of Fundraising. Thomas Hughes-Hallett of Marie Curie Cancer Care and David Nussbaum of the WWF.

“We are writing to you to raise a serious concern over text donations,” the letter stated. “While O2, Vodafone, 3 and now Virgin are committed to passing on 100 percent of text donations to charities. Orange and T-Mobile (Everything Everywhere) are the only remaining mobile operators not to do this. We consider this to be an impediment to effective fundraising via mobile text giving.”

According to The Times, Hurd’s reply emphasised the work Orange and T-Mobile were doing in other areas, including their participation in the Apps for Good campaign but he added: “I urge them to take this opportunity to show their commitment in this way as well.”

Robin O’Kelly, director of corporate communications at Everything Everywhere, responded to an article on Left Foot Forward’s Website: “ Everything Everywhere passes on 100 percent of all donations, including any costs incurred, to all the main text-to-donate users. For some other charities, we have passed on costs incurred (around £9,000 in the past 12 months – relative to £7 million raised).”

“More importantly,” he continued, “we’re working on a Gift Aid solution for text-to-donate and while this is happening we will absorb all costs for all charities – and will probably make this permanent.”