The Oregon chapter of the Children?s Heart Foundation has launched a holiday fund-raiser via a mobile-optimized Facebook application called CafeGive Social.

The chapter hopes to raise $5,000 to support research for children with Congenital Heart Defects, the most common birth defect in the United States. Through Jan. 31, consumers can find the campaign online and via mobile to donate towards the cause.

"We chose Cafe Give because we have used them in the past and have been pleased with the trouble-free ease of their apps," said Julie Le Gassick, board president at Children's Heart Foundation-Oregon Chapter.

Their app helped us raise money through Facebook by creating an easily accessible platform that visibly showed our progress," she said. "They also worked with us to manually adjust the thermometer on the app that showed the amount of money raised when contributors sent in checks rather than donating directly through the app."

Donate CHF
CHF Oregon decided to leverage CafeGive Social to power its digital and social fund-raiser. CafeGive Social creates social media cause marketing.

Consumers can make a tax-deductible donation to CHF Oregon by logging into Facebook and searching for the Oregon Chapter page of the CHF. The CafeGive Donate app is embedded straight into the Facebook page.

When a consumer clicks on the donate button, he or she can choose $25, $50, $100, $200 or other. They can also opt to get email updates for the campaign.

The page also gives a real-time update of how much has been raised with a scrolling list of donors. Consumers can also share the campaign on their own Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn pages.

At the time this article was written, the campaign had already raised $3,475 of the $5,000 goal.

According to the CHF Oregon Chapter, a child is born with Congenital Heart Defects every 15 minutes. The organization is trying to tap into the holiday spirit to help combat this reality through its own research.

Mobile giving
The CHF Oregon Chapter has worked with CafeGive Social for a number of other campaigns as well, including a ?Like Us, Give Back? campaign for #GivingTuesday 2013.

The Oregon Chapter of the CHF is following on a trend that many nonprofits are joining in on. Mobile and social both have the power to garner awareness and attention for any cause.

For instance, The Lunchbox Fund released a mobile appl that lets consumers share photos of meals in exchange for donating food to orphaned and vulnerable children in South Africa (see story).

Google also leveraged mobile for a cause with its Android mobile app called One Today that lets users donate $1 to charities (see story).

Social and mobile work together to give a campaign the spread it needs, while at the same time making it easy and convenient for consumers to make a donation. The channels also enable cost-effective ways for nonprofits to do their work without breaking the bank.

?As more and more donors access information and social networks via their mobile devices, it is essential that our fund-raising campaigns be accessible and easily viewed on all mobile devices,? said Alan Robinson, marketing manager of CafeGive Social, Oregon.

Final Take
Rebecca Borison is editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York