PayPal makes it easier for charities to raise funds via iPhone and Facebook

One industry that desperately needs to take advantage of social media and new technology is the charity and non-profit sector.  So it comes as a welcome announcement that PayPal has taken steps to allow Canadians to use the power of smartphones and social media to quickly and simply send charity donations or raise money for their favourite causes.

Earlier today PayPal Mobile 2.5 was released.  It will allow customers to send charity donations to a select number of highly-regarded, national Canadian non-profit organizations directly from their iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.

PayPal worked with Toronto-based Artez Interactive to make the donate feature possible.  Artez Interactive is a leading  online fundraising provider.

Philip King is the President and CEO of Artez Interactive:

Customers are comfortable using smartphones for all kinds of professional and personal needs, so making it easier for Canadians to give to charities that way is important.  For charities, mobile giving is a new channel; one that allows people to give quickly and simply and one that may help reach new, younger audiences who don’t respond as readily to traditional fundraising campaigns.

PayPal also teamed up with FundRazr and ConnectionPoint Systems.

FundRazr helps people doing fundraising by broadcasting their appeals from within Facebook to their social network.

Daryl Hatton is the CEO of ConnectionPoint:

There’s enormous value in leveraging PayPal and Facebook to enable social networking communities to fundraise for causes they’re passionate about.  Our collaboration with PayPal delivers today’s most innovative online fundraising and sets the stage for launching a spectrum of social media fundraising tools.

The application is available free on FundRazr’s website or Facebook page.  Easy sharing with others via email, Facebook News Feed or Twitter drives rapid build-up of community support and donations.