Comic Relief chooses OpenMarket to power mobile donations for Sport Relief

LONDON, UK: Comic Relief, the UK charity that uses entertainment to raise money to help poor and disadvantaged people at home and overseas, has chosen leading mobile engagement company OpenMarket to drive SMS mobile donations for its 2014 Sport Relief fundraising campaign.

This year's Sport Relief campaign is using the OpenMarket Mobile Engagement Platform (MEP) to power its mobile donation channel, allowing people to donate to the appeal by sending a text message to a short, five-digit code. OpenMarket is managing the entire SMS donation process on behalf of Sport Relief.

The OpenMarket platform supports text-based donations for more than 20 separate Sport Relief fundraising projects across the UK. OpenMarket is providing four charity donation SMS short codes so that donors have the choice of donating different amounts of money via SMS.

The SMS donation campaign began on January 13 with special Sport Relief editions of the BBC show "The Great British Bake Off". The programme featured an on-screen message that invited viewers to donate money by sending a text message to a short code supplied and managed by OpenMarket. The campaign will continue with other shows and events, culminating with the Sport Relief Games on March 23.