The holiday season is here!  The Red Kettles start appearing out front at most retail stores; the bell ringers directing people to donate.

This year with the adoption of social media and mobile applications, charities are adding new ways to give and making it easier for people to donate.

I’m going to explain three organizations and the way they are changing online giving. The website Givemn.org, The Salvation Army, and a new Twitter application called Rainmaker.

Givemn.org
Givemn.org is a great example of an organization that uses tools to promote giving in different ways.

Givemn.org acts as a portal for non-profits to easily raise funds on their website through their online payment system, called Razoo.

They recently had the 2nd annual “Give to the Max Day” on November 16th and gave out prizes to individuals or organizations which gave the largest donations that day. They raised over 10 million dollars for Minnesota non-profits and used various social media tools during the day to promote the event, including: live streaming on sites like MinnPost.com, unique Twitter hashtags, blog mentions and Facebook promotions.

The Salvation Army
The Salvation Army also represents a new approach to online giving this year.

The Salvation Army has created a Red Kettle symbol that other organizations can host on their website. This allows for people to give to The Salvation Army through multiple websites, in addition to The Salvation Army’s own website. People will have more options for where, when and through what website they donate, while giving to the same cause. Additionally, this is a great opportunity for organizations to display their association with The Salvation Army. One unique feature of the Red Kettle iPhone application is that it allows users to track their donation progress.

Additionally, people have the option for the mobile “text-to-give” to 85944 to make a $10 donation to the Salvation Army. People will have more options for where, when, and through what medium they donate, while giving to the same cause.

Rainmaker
This application caught my attention this year.

The Rainmaker application allows users to donate money directly through Twitter. If you have a PayPal account, you can simply connect your PayPal account to your Twitter account and tweet to raise money for the charity or cause of your choice.

How it works.
Send out a tweet, with a minimum donation of a dollar, and then add the name of your cause or charity with a hashtag and @rainmakerapp. The Rainmaker application sends a Direct Message and Paypal is charged shortly thereafter.

Example tweet:
I’m donating $20 to #SecondHarvestHoliday @rainmakerapp

Giving to your charity of choice is now easier than ever. With all these new ways to give this year, how are you going to give back?