Convio released a study yesterday (summarized neatly on USA Today’s “Kindness” blog) about the frenzy of mobile philanthropy or texts-to-donate that happened around the Haiti earthquake.  At least $50 million was raised this way, from about 6.5 million people.

My first reaction when it was happened was that this was the tipping point for this not-so-new way to give.  Popular in Europe and Asia for a while, mobile giving never really caught on in the US until now.  Usually blamed were hesitant service providers and other infrastructure issues.

But there were important cultural factors too.  Simply put, new giving technologies have consistently followed the same pattern for the last few years: a channel finally makes it big when it’s used by one of two (preferably both) specific sectors: political and disaster relief.

This was perfectly illustrated by internet giving itself.  I was working for GetActive (now part of Convio) during the Asian Tsunami.  It was amazing to see the money pour in online to Save the Children, Oxfam, Care and similar organizations that weekend.  Roll back a few months and Howard Dean was having unprecedented success raising money online for his presidental campaign.

Online had been a growing source of revenue by then, of course, but it didn’t really take off until those two events.  And it still took a while to trickle down to social service, educational and arts and cultural groups (even today, we see those sectors raising a lower portion of their funds online than the more activist sectors).

This is exactly the path that mobile philanthropy is taking.   Issue groups and candidates have had some success communicating with their supporters via text message.  And now disaster relief has paved the way for fundraising too.  It remains to be seen how long it will take for this form of giving to trickle down to your local PBS station or library.