New Orleans using premium text to raise Carnival funds

Link: The Morning News: Entertainment : City Tries Texting To Raise Carnival Cash

With efforts to garner corporate sponsorship of Carnival falling flat, the city is turning its attention to the 18-34 year-old techie crowd and hoping they bring their cell phones to Mardi Gras.

City officials are working with Web-based PayPal to raise money via text-message and online-giving to help defray the public costs of Carnival — $4 million to $5 million to cover overtime for police, trash pickup on parade routes and other public expenses. The initial goal is to raise $1 million in the next year.

The cash-strapped city, which since Hurricane Katrina has borrowed heavily to continue operating, is trying to sell Carnival as a family celebration — a major spin away from its party-hearty image — in an effort to reach a wider audience and tap into deeper pockets.

The city’s marketing director acknowledges it isn’t easy. “Who knows how people will respond?” said Ernest Collins. “We just hope they will.”

Depending on how Americans react and the type of media exposure this gets, the campaign could be wildly successful, couldn’t it? If you got 500,000 Americans reaching for their handsets, each donating $10, that could go a long way….

If you’re in America and you’d like to donate:

Ciccarelli said the key demographic for Text to Give are 18-to-34-year-olds, those who use their cell phones to swap shorthand messages or vote for their favorite reality show stars. They would text NOLA5 or NOLA10 to 78787, if they wanted to donate $5 or $10. If they want to donate another sum, they’d simply text NOLA to that number and would get a text prompt asking what they’d like to give, Patricio said.