Clickatell Assists The Wola Nani AIDS Organisation in Raising Funds with SMS

Wola Nani - Xhosa for ‘We embrace and develop one another’, was established in 1994 as a non-profit organisation to help bring relief to the South African communities hardest hit by the HIV crisis. Wola Nani focuses on the needs of HIV positive women and children. Through psychosocial support and access to income generation opportunities, Wola Nani seeks to improve the quality of life for HIV positive clients. The NGO’s services aim to ease the burden of HIV/AIDS by enabling people living with the virus to respond positively and attain the skills to develop their own coping strategies.

Wola Nani has launched an SMS campaign in conjunction with Clickatell that will coincide with this year’s fund raising initiatives and lead up to the International World AIDS day on 1 December 2005. This includes an AIDS awareness premium rated SMS message campaign aimed at raising money for the organisation.

Participants have to SMS the words ‘HIV’ to 38000, at a cost of R10. The money collected from the premium rate campaign will go to Wola Nani in aid of people affected by HIV and AIDS.

"Clickatell’s commitment to HIV awareness and education and assisting people with the disease is something we take very seriously," Clickatell’s General Manager Patrick Lawson says. "We understand that the AIDS crisis puts most HIV service organisations under tremendous pressure to serve the number of people that are affected by this disease."

Continued Lawson, "Premium rate mobile messaging allows non-profit organisations and charities like Wola Nani to generate much needed revenue through the use of SMS campaigns. In addition, Clickatell makes setting up premium rate SMS services fast, easy and cost-effective with its Interactive Campaign Management software, Clickatell ICM, an online application that streamlines the management of two-way SMS campaigns." Lawson says.

Clickatell’s premium rate SMS pricing challenges the typical revenue share model. Usually the revenue generated from premium rated services (PRS) is split between the mobile operator, the wireless application
service provider (WASP) and the campaign runners. Instead, Clickatell only deducts a nominal set-up and conduit fee, and then passes all revenue generated by a premium rate SMS campaign onto the campaign runner.

As part of this year’s campaign, Wola Nani will be hosting a World AIDS Day concert at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town on Saturday 3 December 2005. Friends and family members can look forward to a day of great entertainment with a line-up of well-known South African performers.