Insights
2006, end of year. Marketing agency LUON was looking for a better way to contribute to charity than the traditional cards from charity organizations. We thought we could do better.
- Most charity organizations suffer from overhead: we wanted to spend our money on tangible solutions, not on organizations.
- We didn’t like the concept of one-time donations, because it’s not very effective for structural support.
- People weren’t really involved: they just contributed. And then forgot about it.
- Some of us care more for animals. Some take the refugees in the Middle-East to heart. But why couldn’t everybody choose to donate to the cause they related to the most?
Objectives
- 1 euro donated = 1 euro spent on the cause
- Provide an income rather than a gift
- Increase the involvement: let people feel they are making a difference without a great deal of effort
- Everybody should be able to choose the cause he cares for
In 5 years time, we donated 400,000 euros to charity. That’s 80,000 per year
Ideas
People are willing to contribute if it doesn’t require them to change their way of life. And people do call and text all the time. So we launched a new mobile operator company. We called it Ello. Profits would go to a good cause. People could choose to which cause. Its philosophy?
You call. Ello Mobile donates.
Result?
Without a single euro spent on traditional advertising, 5,000 people now rely on Ello Mobile for their phonecalls, text messages and mobile data traffic.
Most of our users are proud brand advocates. So we provide them with e-mail signatures, stickers, banners and some cool virals and they happily spread the message.
In 5 years time, we donated 400,000 euros to charity. That’s 80,000 per year. An amount we never donated with new year’s cards. Ello subscribers can choose out of 8 projects, all approved by the King Baudouin Foundation. Or they can choose to donate to all of them. Every month, we tell them how much we made for these causes. So they feel they are making a real difference. Every euro profit we make goes directly and for 100% to these organizations.
Thanks to Ello Mobile’s profit;
- 7 mobile schools are on the road in South America
- 200 families in Guinee Bissau now have access to drinkable water
- 17 human rights teams were financed to fight for equal rights for women on the Philippines
- 27 children with a long-lasting illness were saved from isolation during their treatment
- 447 Palestinian kids got an education in Libanese refugee camps
- 1,715,434 square meters of rainforest has been saved from cutting in Sumatra
- 184 hectares of woods and heath are bought and cared for in Averbode
- 40,527 children got vaccinated with quinine to save them from a sure death by Malaria in Eastern Congo