Rick Christ to appear at Carnegie Hall!

Live! One Day Only!

Unfortunately, I won't be performing the bass solo from Handel's "Messiah!" But I will be meeting with their staff about online fundraising from their very upscale audience. I'll be in New York City Tuesday morning, Aug. 15. If you're in mid-town and want to talk about online fundraising that afternoon, let me know.

Prior to that, I'll be in New Orleans (Aug. 10 - 14) attending the biennial conference of my college fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi. I'll also be reuniting with some of New Orleans' bravest that I worked with in the lower Ninth Ward after Katrina. On the morning of Friday, 11 August, I'll be hosting an open meeting/seminar at the office of the Louisiana Assoc. of Nonprofit Organizations. If you want to join us, contact me or just show up.

Of course, I'll also be in New York prior to that (Aug. 7-10) for the DMA's Nonprofit Conference. No time to email! Text me if you want to talk while we're both there.

In DC? Heather and I are there all the time. Call or email.

text messaging for voter registration

Last month MobileVoter launched what they call the "TxtVoter: Run Your Own Campaign" system.

According to Ben Rigby, Co-ED, it's a free system/service that allows individuals and organizations to use texting(SMS) to conduct their own voter registration campaigns. Users can define their own text-in keywords, print out customized postcards, track respondents, and win prizes. In sum, we’re giving civically minding people an accessible, effective, and fun tool to register their friends, family, and community.

Voter reg has never been done like this before. Instead of relying on a centralized top-down organization to go out and engage voters, our service puts the power in the peer-to-peer network. It’s worked for music and socializing; by Nov 7th we’ll know if it works for civic engagement!

So be sure to spread the word. And become a registrar at: http://www.txtvoter.org.

U R Fired - text messaging goes mainstream

Here's a great article about a 21-year old woman working at "Blue Banana, a body-piercing and jewelery shop in the UK, who was fired via an SMS message to her cell phone.

According to the AFP article (Agence French Presse, not Assoc. of Fundraising Professionals), the store's owner said, "We are a youth business and our staff are all part of the youth culture that uses SMS (text) messaging as a major means of communication."

Two years ago I read about a survey, also taken in the UK, that said that 10% of single British men reported being dumped by their girlfriends via a text message. While it may not say a lot about the couth of British women, but it certainly says a lot about the medium.

If you want to reach youth for philanthropy or advocacy, learn to speak in 156-character messages. Contact us for more information on how to start. And see the next article on text messaging to drive voter registration in the US.