New App Uses Push Notifications To Reach Nonprofit Donors Faster

Here's a new way to reach nonprofit donors on their smartphones.

Greg McHale, founder of charitable auction site BiddingForGood , launched a new mobile app called LetsAllDoGood on Monday. 

The app lets users connect directly with partnering nonprofits through push notifications that stand out in the flood of communication on mobile devices. The key is that users can select which organizations can send them updates and which ones cannot. If a nonprofit needs volunteers for an upcoming event, for example, it can send out a push reminder to its followers.

Nonprofits have the increasingly difficult task of reaching donors through the clutter of social media notifications and emails. McHale told the Boston Globe that email open and response rates went down in 2015, according to a M&R Benchmarks study.

"[The app] pulls out all that doing-good that's buried in your inbox or buried in your Twitter feed or buried in your Facebook feed and puts it right in front of you," McHale told Business News Network.

The app targets its mobile market in a more direct way than email. This seems to be a valid choice, as 65 percent of nonprofit social media happens on mobile, and 41 percent of donors with a smartphone are willing to make financial transactions on mobile, a recent Mobile Cause study found. 

Currently, LetsAllDoGood is partnered with 10 Boston-area organizations. However, McHale hopes to eventually open the platform to any nonprofit or charitable organization in the future. 

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article misstated that Greg McHale was previously CEO of BiddingForGood.