In July, media consultant Amy Gahran spoke to local funders in Portland, Ore. about engaging local communities via mobile devices. Below are the tools she recommended for such efforts.

Mobile Commons: Pricey (starts at around $2000/month) but comprehensive toolset. Texting, mobile giving, relationship management, analytics, more. Some foundations and large organizations subscribe and deploy on behalf of grantees. Many public broadcasting organizations have access, which may make them especially useful partners.

Red Oxygen: Bulk SMS (simple messaging service, i.e.texting) vendor, affordable, list management, many broadcast/interactive features, maintain multiple/segmented lists, analytics. Good place to start with broadcast or interactive texting. (One of many such services. Avoid free bulk SMS services; carriers often block them.)

Local mobile market research survey: Includes links to download printable MS Word and PDF versions.

Mailchimp guide to mobile-friendly e-mail: Guidance to help your e-mail blasts, alerts, newsletters. (More on this.)

Google Analytics mobile dashboard: See more clearly how your mobile web traffic differs from your desktop web traffic.

Poll Everywhere: Simple SMS polling service. Plans range $15-$375/month, depending on features, can ramp up/down anytime. Especially good for campaigns & conferences.

Groundsource: SMS surveys, polls, interaction -- designed to cultivate discussion among a network of community sources. Spinoff of the Public Insight Networkpublic broadcasting project. Currently in beta.

Vojo: Free hosted platform that enables people to share multimedia stories, even from non-smartphones. Based on the customized Drupal platform that supports the Mobile Voicesproject in South Los Angeles.

Asterisk: Free open-source software that lets you create interactive voice response (IVR), 311-style info lines, and more. Useful for mobile engagement to communities speaking niche languages/dialects or low literacy/internet access.

Twilio:Commercially marketed platform with huge developer community. Integrates voice (including IVR), text, video, e-mail, other interaction channels. Foundation could deploy this on behalf of grantees.

MGive: Popular text-to-donate service. (One of many, but has a pretty good reputation). 2014 text giving study.

Giving Day Playbook: Knight Foundation guide to organizing a 24-hour Giving Day campaign. Doesn't specifically cover mobile channels, but most of the recommendations could be used via mobile.