Pretty soon, there will be more cell phones than people, but how can your nonprofit leverage this important trend to further your mission? A group of experts will share data, case studies, and insights that will help you learn the benefits of entering and accessing data remotely, using both the mobile Web and SMS.

1. Allan A. Báez
Special Project Manager
Dennis Pan
Computational Statistics Assistant
MOBILE PHONE SURVEY
(Results in brief)

2. 1. Variables of study:
• Social variables: Age, gender, income, housing
status, education level and living situation
• Mobile phone variables: ownership, data access,
affordability, type of plan, connectivity, carriers,
mobile phone features, shortcomings of the
services, airtime and text messages
• LifeLine Wireless Program variables: Subscribers,
familiarity and shortcoming of the registration
process.
• Community Voice Mail

3. 2. Sample:
• Area of study: Santa Clara County, California, USA
• Target population: Clients of service providers from
Santa Clara County older than 18 years old
• Total population: 48,1321
• Sample size: n=4982
• Locations: 14 service providers located in 5 cities: San
Jose, Mountain View, Gilroy, Palo Alto and Sunnyvale.
• Administration dates: March 7-18, 2013
• Total survey questions: 27
1. Number of individuals who received services at a service provider in Santa Clara County during 2012 according to the HMIS-SCC
Quarterly Community Wide Report (October-December 2012).
2. Based on MaCorr research solutions. http://www.macorr.com/sample-size-mehodology.htm

4. 3. MOBILE PHONE OWERSHIP & DATA ACCESS
Homeless individuals
• 51.8% total surveyed (n=258)
• 62% own a mobile phone
• 53.7% data access
Non-homeless individuals
• 44.6% total surveyed (222)
• 76.1% own a mobile phone
• 54.4% data access
• Data divided in 3 housing status
From the total people surveyed 68.7% have a mobile phone (n=342) and
of those 54.4% have data access (n=186)
90% of households with children
have a mobile phone
64.4% of job searchers have a
mobile phone
But only
Living situation by mobile phone ownership :

5. 19.88%
26.32%
17.25%
9.06%
9.36%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
NO-RESPONSE
Don't know / not
sure
< $5
$5 to $15
$15.10 to $25
$25.10 to $35
$35.10 to $45
$45.10 to $55
> $55
4. Affordability:
How do they afford the service
51.8%
18.4%
12.6%
11.7%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
N/R
I am part of Lifeline
Other
Somebody
(friends/relatives)
help me pay for it
Somebody
(friends/relatives)
pay for it
With my own
income
How much they pay
31%
62.6%
*Surveyed people who pay a minimum of $45.10 for their mobile phone service spend
an average of 6% of their average income for this service. That is equivalent to paying a
minimum of $300/mo for someone earning 60k/per year
46.2%

6. 56.4%
20.5%
14.1%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Live with one or
more child < 17
yrs old (& others)
Veterans (&
Others)
N/R
Have a disability
or a chronic
disease (& others)
Looking for job (&
Others)
No cell phone by living situation
Of the total people with no phone (31.1%,
n=156), 64.7% don’t have a phone
because they cannot afford it.
Of the total people that have data access,
58% pay the phone with their own
income
People with no phone access
72.6% of people who have data access
pay more than $35.10 per month
Data access
Affordability conts…

7. 5. Connectivity
48.8% of surveyed people
have had their mobile phone
service disconnected in the
last 6 months.
Of those who has been
disconnected, 33.3% had
their service disconnected
more than 2 times.
63.4% were disconnected
because they could not
afford the bill
47.3% were
homeless people
54.4% were
homeless people

8. Connectivity: phone call destination
48.83%
26.02%
3.22%
4.09%
5.26%
1.46%
4.39%
6.73%
Family or Friends
Job related
To potential employers
Housing related
Health related
Social services or Case manager
Other
NO-RESPONSE

9. 6. PHONE CARRIERS
51.5%
15%
8.2%
7.3%
5.9%
5.6% 4.7%
1.8%
MetroPCS
Other carriers
Verizon
AT&T
T-Mobile
Tracfone
Sprint
N/R-Don't know
*Other carriers include: Nexus, Telscape, Cricket, Straight talk, Virgin mobile,
Boost mobile, Assurance and Net 10
60% have data
access
51.7% pay more
than $45.10
Average income of
$558.6
This represents 8.1%
of their total
monthly income
50.5% are homeless
people
2.5GB Data at 4GLTE
Speed for $50
Who are these
people?

10. 7. Mobile phone features/Mobile phone issues
Desired mobile phone features: Issues with their mobile phones:
33.04%
13.45%
12.87%
12.87%
9.65%
8.19%
5.85%
1.75% 1.17% 0.58% 0.58%
35.09%
16.37%
12.28%
10.53%
9.06%
4.68% 4.09% 4.09% 3.51%
0.29%

11. 8. Conclusions:
• Very Low-income and homeless people are adopting mobile phones
in large numbers, and are willing to pay a relatively large
percentage of their monthly income for voice and data services
• Mobile phones are routinely disconnected because people cannot
make monthly payments, even though most homeless users have
their monthly billed paid at least partially by a friend or family
member.
• People looking for a job are actually using their outgoing calls for
this purpose. However, they are the group of people with lower
accessibility to mobile phones
• Patterns and major differences between social variables and mobile
phones are not clear in the data collected, this can be partially
explained due to the increasing necessity of mobile phones
throughout different populations including the target population.

12. CONNECTSCC
Collaborative
meeting of
stakeholders
The B.I.G.
project.
Funded by The
Health Trust
To identify a viable and sustainable
model(s) that can disrupt the
current mobile phone service used
by the homeless population and/or
by extremely low-income individuals
1. Context of consumption
2. Market analysis
3. Construction and model
analysis
4. Business Plan

13. Thank you
Community Technology Alliance (CTA)
CTA is a Silicon Valley nonprofit that harness technologies
to empower communities to develop data-driven
solutions to poverty and homelessness
-Visit us at:
http://www.ctagroup.org/
-Follow us at:
Facebook.com/ctagroup.org
@CTA_group_

14. Taking Your Mission Mobile
Deb Levine, Founder, YTH
(formerly ISIS)
Social Media 4 Nonprofits
June, 2013 Mountain View

15. Why Mobile?
• 91% of people in the U.S. own mobile
phones
• 56% of adults in the U.S. own smart
phones
• 78% of teens have mobile phones
• 36% of teens have smart phones
• There is little disparity in phone ownership
based on race/ethnicity/socioeconomic
status

16. Adult Latina Women
• 251 surveys of Latinas aged 16-59
• 96% have mobile phones
• 70% have data plans on their mobile
phones

17. African-American Youth
• Conversations with 75 youth of color in
San Francisco
• 99% have mobile phones; about 20%
have more than one
• 100% use their phones for calls and SMS
text messaging
• 66% have data plans on their mobile
phones

18. The Basics: Messaging
• Text messages: 140 – 160 characters, one
way or two way messaging. One way best
used to engage and encourage to take an
action, such as increase access to services
or sign a petition. Two way good for deep
engagment, crisis management.
• Multimedia messaging: Enhanced text
messages with pics, video and audio

19. The Basics: Web and Apps
• Mobile web: Reaching those who access
the Internet only via their mobile phones,
most often people with greatest economic
and health disparities
• Smartphone apps: Makes optimum use of
phone features such as photo, video,
GPS, etc. Platform dependent
(iPhone/Droid)

20. Use for Mobile
• Information and Awareness: SMS and
MMS
• Advocacy: SMS and mobile web
• Fundraising: SMS and mobile web
• Behavior Change/Reminders: SMS, apps
• Prevention: SMS, apps

21. SMS: Does it Work?
• Numerous feasibility and acceptability
studies completed of SMS non-profit
usage
• Recent reviews concluded that SMS can
be used successfully to promote short-
term behavior change, advocacy,
fundraising

22. Examples
• Fundraising: Works well for events (Red,
ACS)
• DoSomething.org: 1 million subscribers
• Credo mobile: 3 million+ members; 500
action campaigns/year
• National Dating Abuse Helpline: 2 way
chat and text messaging service

23. Best Practices
• Understand the local mobile landscape
• Community inclusion
• Partnerships (community and tech)
• Multi-media strategy
• Evaluation and marketing built in and
budgeted

24. Challenges
• Mobile still low priority (4% of nonprofits said
texting was somewhat important to their
mission in 2012)
• Inability to be flexible and iterate
• Wildly divergent costs, services provided
• Msgs sent via mobile phones are not
confidential
• Unclear terms of service by carriers

25. Case Studies
• TIPS: Text information portal for Latina
women in Fresno County
• Oregon Reminders: SMS, Voice and Email
reminders for HIV testing and medication
• Circle of 6: Mobile app to prevent dating
violence and sexual assault on college
campuses

32. YTH Live
mHealth for Youth track
– SMS to improve medication adherence for HIV+
youth: Children’s Hosp of Chicago
– Geolocating apps for HIV prevention: San Mateo
County Health
– Mobile app to help teens find docs: NYC DOH
– SMS and text-chat to replace f/u appointments: Cell-
Life, South Africa
– Mobile and tech on a shoestring budget: Family Tree
Clinic
– Responsive design: AIDS.gov

33. Contact Info
Deb Levine, YTH
deb@yth.org
@DebYTH
Facebook.com/ythorg
510-835-9400