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Digital Fundraising Booms For Haiti Relief
It seems that a recent digital fundraising drive for Haiti relief has stunned organizers at the Red Cross and White House. As of the last tally on Friday the campaign was at well over $8 million. "Earlier Thursday, when the Red Cross topped $3 million in text and social media donations — it hit nearly $40 million from all sources by late Thursday — spokesman Jonathan Aiken described it as 'a phenomenal number that's never been achieved before. People text up to three times at 10 bucks a pop,' Aiken said. 'You're talking about roughly 300,000 people actually spontaneously deciding, "I can spare $10 for this." And that's remarkable.' As of late Thursday, more than half of all donations to the Red Cross's Haiti relief effort had been received online, according to a news release.
it seems i may have underestimated you.
haiti needs complete rebuilding not temporary relief which will vanish once the earthquake new disappears from the front pages. it needed that much money and more before the quake even hit. not it needs demolition and rebuilding not quick fixes and temporary aid.
It is easier to get 4 million people to give $10 then it is to get 4,000 people to give $10,000. But it takes a wide spread publicity campaign, which the networks are giving away for free. By the way, if every person in the world sends me 1 penny (just ONE penny) via paypal to me at gurps_npc (at) hotmail.com, then I will be very happy.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Is there a way to follow all this money closely. One slip up in mismanagement and this phenomenon is history.
Small Dog Electronics, an Apple Specialist (and a darn fine one at that) matched customer donations, up to $200 per customer, and will be sending over $20,000 to Doctors Without Borders in the coming days! Check them out, smalldog.com. Good people.
Yeah, how much of that money will actually go to helping the people in trouble?
A vast percentage of those donations will go to "infrastructure" costs (ie. inefficiencies, waste, and profiteering). I have first hand experience with how they work. Shameful.
While I can certainly agree with donating to charity to help people who have hit unexpected hard times, the root cause of the scale of the crisis is the sheer fact that the country lives in pre-industrial conditions under an oppressive, corrupt government, which ultimately means that massive numbers of people are living in concentrated areas, in buildings unfit for handling disasters. An earthquake of the exact same magnitude - or greater - in an equally populated area of the US, would have suffered a fraction of the casualties. So ultimately, the cure to their woes is not foreign aid, but more individual freedom, less government corruption, and the development of industry and improvement in living standards, which will culminate in safer buildings and residences.
I donated to Mercy Corps the old fashioned way, by entering a credit card number into a website.
Boing Boing's Xeni Jardin has posted some interesting stuff on Boing Boing. It seems that enough of the high-techie infrastructure survived to allow people to keep in touch and look for lost relatives:
The internet is a vital form of communication, as are cellphones—when they work—and she is seeing people in Haiti using social networking services as a means to try and locate missing loved ones within Haiti. The environment is so chaotic and roads so badly damaged that even in-country, mobile technology and web-based social networking services like Facebook are playing a vital role in the reconnection process. Don't assume that because Haiti is so poor, nobody's using the internet. She says cell service has been spotty, with certain carriers performing better than others. She connected to us using WIMAX, and the degree to which that service has performed during the disaster makes her a real believer in the promise of that particular wireless technology.
AIDG's Catherine Lainé, live from Haiti (BB Video)
Update from Doctors Without Borders team in Port-au-Prince (Cool inflatable MASH-like field hospital!)
I could use a crate full these days...
A second article states that it usually takes 90 days for the donation to be transferred.
While the phone companies are looking at how to speed this up, am I the only one who believes that this would be a good way for some banks to earn back some credibility? It seems like they could give the Red Cross a 90 day loan to give them the money today, at 0%. Makes them look really good.
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Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
If people were willing to vote for American Idol, they would probably be willing to donate to AID using the exact same services.
I think it was just a matter of not being able to pledge money through your phone so effortlessly and efficiently. Giving your bank account info to some aid organization over the phone was more expensive and time consuming. Plus they take money monthly and not everyone wants to cover Red Cross' Paycheck unless they are actively working on an emergency like this one.
So now what excuses would you have left besides being a cheapscate? Especially if you spend more money texting reality TV shows every other week anyways.
So does one local company here in Vermont - Small Dog Electronics. They matched donations, up to $200, and will be sending over $20,000 to Doctors Without Borders in the next few days! They're good people too! www.smalldog.com
A second article states that it usually takes 90 days for the donation to be transferred. While the phone companies are looking at how to speed this up, am I the only one who believes that this would be a good way for some banks to earn back some credibility? It seems like they could give the Red Cross a 90 day loan to give them the money today, at 0%. Makes them look really good.
Sorry that was a typo, it should have said 30 days. Same link though.
Donate and Help the Médecins Sans Frontières International MSF
http://www.msf.org/msfinternational/donations/
Or Unicef, so many children need help at this moment... So many are either alone or hurt.
http://www.supportunicef.org/site/pp.asp?c=9fLEJSOALpE&b=1023561
In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.
...seeing as I get paid 2 times a month.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Since this is a charitable donation, in the U.S., is there some way to get it counted off taxes? It is via phone, how do you show those records?
**ALL organizations collecting for disaster relief in Haiti are eligible to receive fee waivers. Please send an e-mail to nonprofit@paypal.com for fee waiver consideration.
Too bad they don't mention this on the http://www.paypal.com/ page.
Red Cross is notorious for only spending what they feel they need to. In other disasters only 10% of the money donated ever reached the actual disaster, and of that, there was a huge overhead.
Sorry folks, just not worth it. Do a little digging first, there are MUCH better charities out there that have a LOT more (or all!) of the money you donate going directly to Haiti.
Yo Grark
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
At times like these it really makes you proud to be an American to see the great amount of donations going out even in this terrible economy and good to see people have sympathy for others.
Donations by private Americans a lot of the time donate more than a lot of countries combined but make sure you donate to a reputable charity because online fraud is at an all time high after incidents like these.
I have two family members who are R.N.'s and a neighbor on wait with the Orange County, CA disaster team, cash is one of the best things you can donate because it costs so much to transport the material.
UPS is shipping anything for free under 50lbs
$4 million so far donated to the Salvation Army by text
$8 million donated to the state department by text
and now I am sure the Red Cross will step it up with this
It's not just the amount (though that's part of it). Technology is allowing people to give easily at the very moment that they're seized with the urge to help. Used to be you'd have to go find your checkbook, a stamp, look up an address to send to, etc... which requires a sustained intention that lasts longer than the emotional impulse. Now you just text HAITI to 90999 and instantly satisfy your desire to do something. That makes a huge difference in turning noble motivations into action.
I would suggest that if you decided to donate money, do it thru Red Cross (which I choose), Unesco or any multinational organizations. Do not give it to embassies of the country, if they have asking for donations too. If you do, chances are that the money will not only not help the desperate people who need it, but will make even richer the usually corrupt local government.
You want to use guns to take money away from people and give it to other people, according to your whims, and that's what you call "fair"?
Text 'haiti' to 90999
I can't believe its not in the article or been edited to go in the summary.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/01/14/cashmore.haiti.earthquake.relief.technology/
Also this was on Colbert last night
No, you were right, 30 days was for Canadian charities; the 90 day figure was for "some" American ones.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
I agree. Poverty is a due to a mindset of not respecting property. You get out of poverty by working to create things of value (wealth) and having a mentality where you don't steal or destroy wealth. But I have no idea how you can teach that to people. I have the same problem with the invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan. We are smart enough in this country not to let our military run the country and to make our government as weak as possible. But then we want to install a powerful government in these other countries to keep the people under control. I agree with the isolationists. The best thing we can do is mind our own business and lead by example. If people are impressed with us they might try to copy our ways.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Isn't this the way the Red Cross typically works?
They pay for the current disaster from their general fund, and donations go into the fund for the *next* disaster. That way, when something like this happens they don't have to wait for people to begin contributing before they can spring into action.
I mean, I can understand your concern, but on the other hand-- if Red Cross had that money in-hand right now, would they be able to do more than they are already doing? I'd wager they're more limited by the inaccessibility of the country than anything relating to cashflow.
Comment of the year
I think you are lying.
I hope (not pray--I'm atheist) your family is well. It's clear they were in bad shape before the earthquake.
It would make them look good but they aren't going to do it because they don't need to look good. They don't give a rat's ass about anything except next quarter's margin.
No, generally the guns are saved for when elections don't turn out how the US likes them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Haiti http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Uphold_Democracy
You get 9974 feet (3040 meters) of asphalt in Haiti.
You need 8400 feet (2600 meters) for a C-5B to take off. That fits, and you'll be leaving empty anyway. You can knock 30% off of that if you use a C-5M.
Landings are even easier. They take only 3600 feet (1100 meters). You could do one on each end of the runway if you dare.
Finally, remember that this is a military cargo plane. It has lots of giant low-pressure tires. Plain dirt will work as long as you don't mind bulldozing/grading the ruts out of it after every flight.
BTW, all the other military cargo planes can land on dirt as well, and you can usually skip the bulldozer or grader because they don't dig in as much as the C-5.
Most people didn't have water **before** the quake. The same goes for electrical power. It's only the well-to-do Haitians (probably having relatives in the USA to send money) who are experiencing this for the first time.
Lots of Haitians normally use the "flying toilet". You poop in an old plastic bag, step outside, and throw it as far as you can. I am not kidding. It's popular in Kenya too.
There is a reasonable argument that Haiti is better off than a place like post-Katrina New Orleans. No running water? Cool, the house didn't have a sink or toilet anyway!
Suppose your dog is really really sick. It's hopeless. He's not going to get any better, and he's in a lot of pain. What do you do?
If it's not right to leave a dog suffering like that, how can it be right for a country?
Depending on how we put Haiti down, we might even get rid of the invasive species and then reboot the ecosystem. It could be a nice place in 100 years.
A second article states that it usually takes 90 days for the donation to be transferred.
While the phone companies are looking at how to speed this up, am I the only one who believes that this would be a good way for some banks to earn back some credibility? It seems like they could give the Red Cross a 90 day loan to give them the money today, at 0%. Makes them look really good.
Forget the loan with 0% interest, how about the banks match the amount, dollar for dollar?
As part of a post about the Haiti SMS campaigns (Red Cross and mGive bring charity Anywhere), I constructed a chart of $ collected over time, based on public announcements on twitter. It's amazing how it just skyrockets. The success of these campaigns may be the "breakthrough moment" which first associates SMS/texting with payments in the U.S. Jeffrey
"You want to use guns to take money away from people and give it to other people, according to your whims, and that's what you call "fair"?"
We don't listen to those who are irresponsible members of society who don't care anything about their fellow men and only about themselves, especially when they have more then enough and the so called "stolen money" wouldn't amount to much anyway.
Really, one of the first news is that the Presidential Palace was destroyed.
For all practical matters it seems like Haiti has stopped having a functioning government (and no, I know that the demise of the Palace would not necessarily imply the collapse of government, but I am using it as a symbol, before you wise asshats point this out...).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
But there is a context prior to that.
When Haiti became independent, the French embargoed the country and eventually managed to wrestle a commitment from the country to pay for their freedom. In my country we call that blackmailing, I don't know how you call it. Haiti was paying that money as late as the middle of last century.
Then the cleptocrats Duvaliers (father and son, read about them, fucking bastards) ruled the country thanks to their impeccable credentials as anti Communists (guess which country was a good friend?)
To top things up, Jean Bertrand Aristide, the guy that raised against the tyrants from the slums, was swept away from power when he tried to implement reforms that would have benefited the poorest people in the country. The military junta was eventually recognized by the usual suspects that say to promote democracy and liberte, fraternite et egalite.
So I will also give my prescription for Haiti: the only way they will ever leave poverty is when France and the US actually decide to support a democratic government there (sometimes it would seem that Haiti will be forever punished for having challenged the idea that black slave could be free, they have paid dearly for their temerity).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.