Have you heard of “doom-scrolling”?

Doom-scrolling refers to the unfortunate habit of staring at one’s phone, scrolling, scrolling, and scrolling into the void, as you await yet another notification.

Assuming you’re doom-scrolling at home, as many of us are these days, you’re likely near a desktop or laptop computer.

These days, though, we live in a smartphone-driven world, where many of us prefer scrolling on our ever-more-slender phones than on a larger, easier-to-read screen—and the numbers back it up.

Given that we’ve moved our entire lives (including our limited fields of vision) over to our smartphones, mobile applications have become more popular than ever.

• In 2020 alone, mobile apps are expected to generate $935 billion in revenue.
• 49% of people open a mobile app on their smartphones eleven times per day….or more.
• 69% of all time spent in the United States on digital media is spent accessing that media through mobile apps.
• From 2016 to 2019, mobile app downloads skyrocketed from 140.68 billion to 204 billion—a 45% increase in three years.

What’s this got to do with nonprofits?

Well, first, navigating our smartphone-driven world means growing your own understanding of and willingness to use technology that drives your nonprofit’s mission. And second, entering that digital realm means accepting that the majority of your potential donors will use technology to interact with your nonprofit—and you've gotta meet those donors wherever they want to meet you.

Ergo, your supporters are staring at their smartphones expecting you to be there.

What if one of those new-fangled mobile apps offered you an entryway to an experience your nonprofit could sponsor?

What if your nonprofit could grab attention through a smartphone the way you once grabbed attention at year-end galas?

It’s certainly an idea.

What do mobile apps have to do with nonprofits, anyway?

The beautiful thing about our digital-driven world is that it's constantly offering new ways that technology can do the heavy lifting in our day-to-day routine.

Not to toot our own horn—okay, maybe to toot our own horn—you might want to consider using Funraise’s mobile app if you’re a Funraise user. (And if you’re not, check out Funraise Free!)

Here are a few things that Funraise’s mobile app offers:

• Donation collection on-the-go, from wherever you can hold your cell phone
• The ability to access and edit your transactions from anywhere and everywhere
• A task list you can review and check off as you make things happen

The truly special thing about apps is how they’re designed for a mobile-first world. App developers saw how smartphones had changed everything—up to and including administering a nonprofit—and they created software in order to make that notoriously difficult job a little bit easier.

We all might as well get something out of doom-scrolling, after all.