BEACON, NY — Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, America’s environmental flagship, has launched a campaign to build a mobile community. The campaign provides a fresh approach to building the organization’s renowned grassroots community, and will provide members with latest news, events, programs and initiatives and facilitate volunteerism, feedback, polls, and other opportunities to participate in the organization’s programs, all via text messaging.
As Clearwater continues to grow its membership, it hopes to cultivate new audience members with its communications tools, particularly as mobile devices are becoming a dominant way for people to quickly and easily access information.
“Starting a mobile community was the natural next step,” said Heidi Kitlas, Development Director, “We’re confident people will find the mobile updates useful for keeping up with Clearwater and Clearwater events wherever they are, and drive traffic to our website where people can learn more about the important work we are doing. Now people can simply text “RIVER” to 80077 to sign up and receive updates and information in the palm of their hand.”
Clearwater launched the mobile community campaign this April and is promoting it through its website and social media, printed newsletters and other collateral. A strategy is in place to fully implement the campaign at the Great Hudson River Revival (Clearwater Festival) where attendees will receive text messages to announce stage appearances and direct them to key events and activities occurring over the weekend. They will also be encouraged to donate to Clearwater via mobile giving. The annual Hudson River Revival/Clearwater Festival will take place on June 15 and 16 this year, at Croton Point Park in Westchester County, NY. For more information, visit www.ClearwaterFestival.org.
“Guided by our unwavering grassroots mentality, we wanted to provide our members and supporters with an easy way to donate via their cell phone and also receive periodic updates on our programs, the sloop Clearwater or opportunities to volunteer. In essence, we’re looking to our roots to help us keep growing,” said Eileen Newman, Grants & Major Gifts Coordinator.
Clearwater also hopes to augment its donations and member giving through the mobile community campaign, which is set up through iMobile Accord / mGive, responsible for raising more than 85% of all funds raised to date through the mobile giving channel. Mobile Accord works with more than two hundred nonprofit clients, including many of the nation’s top charities and new non-profits register every month to raise funds through mGive.
The mGive Foundation is a 501(c)(3) that works with mGive and wireless carriers in order to help preserve the integrity of the mobile giving channel. The mGive Foundation is responsible for vetting each 501(c)(3) organization that wishes to participate in mobile giving. This protects all parties involved and assures donors and wireless carriers that participating charities are all in good standing.
To learn more about Clearwater’s mobile community, visit www.clearwater.org/about/mobile-community.
