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KIDS NEED (YOU) TO BID

By: Lily Steiner


Kids Need to Read is a charity for the MySpace generation, a clever use of emerging technology to solve an old problem. Unfortunately, charities taking this innovative approach face a new obstacle—one that an Australian mobile marketing services company stands ready to solve.
Founded by Canadian-born science fiction author PJ Haarsma and his friend, fellow Canadian and actor Nathan Fillion, Kids Need to Read buys copies of award-winning and librarian-approved books for children and young adults, and donates them to school libraries and children in need. The organization’s website proclaims, “Money should never be used as an excuse when it comes to the education of our children.”
And to KNTR, money is never an excuse. The charity raises its funds from an unlikely source—auctioning off memorabilia associated with Fillion and his costars on the defunct cult TV show Firefly. While little-known outside the sci-fi fan community, Fillion and his cohorts are widely known within it for gamely showing up at events to spend time with the fans who still refer to them as “BDHs”—shorthand for “Big Damn Heroes,” a reference to the characters’ unlikely moniker on the show. The fans of Firefly and its companion film, Serenity, are mostly young, hip, and tech-savvy, and will pay plenty in online auctions for DVDs, photos, and stuffed toys bearing Fillion’s scrawl or that of other cast members. The fact that the money goes to help children to read only drives prices higher.
Unfortunately, while KNTR has had great success connecting to Fillion and Haarsma’s fans on MySpace and Facebook, the steady flow of auction items for KNTR and other high-speed, high-tech charities can fly by well-meaning bidders before they have a chance to drive up prices and bring in more cash for strapped libraries. And with target donors who skew younger and lower in income than the typical Hollywood high roller, every avenue of communication helps.
That’s where BroadcasterMedia, an Australia-based company that provides interactive, graphics-rich content to mobile phones, comes in. BroadcasterMedia’s system creates evolving communities on users’ phones. It’s extremely versatile and works on almost any cell phone, regardless of handset maker or network in Australia, the United Kingdom, or the United States. The system has been used in the past to let users download information with the push of a button—whether it was data on the complete Toyota fleet at a Sydney auto show or wait times for theme parks in Ohio.
In 2007, BroadcasterMedia’s system was used to develop a “click-to-donate” system for Wildlife Warriors Worldwide, the wildlife foundation created by the late Steve Irwin, remembered by viewers and fans as the Crocodile Hunter. The system allows users to download information or donate by texting the world “wildlife” to 734 262 2948. The service, which forwards to a donation hotline, is also available to the general public, and can be forwarded—creating a viral charity system that capitalizes on the new-millennium popularity of charities like KNTR.
Talk about big heroes.

Article Source: The Article Library

www.BroadcasterMedia.com by Lily Steiner www.AmericanBusinessGateway.com

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