Digital Fundraising Booms For Haiti Relief 124
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.
Re:let's follow the money (Score:3, Informative)
Yes there is a way to follow the money. I'm 95% certain that the Red Cross is still using Raisers Edge to track their fund raising. It's a trivial matter to generate a campaign report that details who gave the money and what fund it went to. As far as tracking it from the fund to actual recipient, I think you're going to find that it gets wasted in the same way most charitable donations get wasted. Well over 50% of the money gets consumed in administrative overhead.
Great coverage on Boing Boing (Score:3, Informative)
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) [boingboing.net]
Update from Doctors Without Borders team in Port-au-Prince [boingboing.net] (Cool inflatable MASH-like field hospital!)
Re:let's follow the money (Score:5, Informative)
I think you're going to find that it gets wasted in the same way most charitable donations get wasted. Well over 50% of the money gets consumed in administrative overhead.
The redcross is not most charities; they have a very good reputation for low overhead. Katrina lost only 9% of your donation to overhead: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Red_Cross [wikipedia.org]. The red cross is one of the few charities I still donate to because of their low overhead costs.
And GP, the red cross has been around since before 1900 and whatever slip ups they might be accused of, people are still donating.
Re:let's follow the money (Score:3, Informative)
I run the Interactive department for one of the key non-profits involved in this effort. We've been working around the clock since the earthquake to set up online donations, informational pages, disaster-coordination tools like haiti.ushahidi.com, and mobile giving. 100% of the money is going to Haiti, starting tonight (as credit card transactions have cleared.) No one is taking "administrative fees."
As a citizen of a 3rd world country (Score:1, Informative)
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.
Re:The low amount and high publicity is key (Score:3, Informative)
My wife called me this morning and say she was going to donate so I gave her the texting number to do it. She said no to the texting because she wanted to give $100. It was uncomfortable for me at first. We are far from rich, have a mortgage, 4 kids, etc. But it took me about 15 seconds and I was on board. It wasn't her convincing me because she didn't try. It was me looking inside and being ok with it. $10 would be easy for us. $100 will cause a little discomfort. I'm ashamed at myself that it took me 15 seconds to realize that our discomfort is nothing compared to what those people are going through.
Re:and the money won't even go to Haiti (Score:4, Informative)
These people seem to disagree with you. To get on this list, 75% or
more has to go to program services.
http://www.charitywatch.org/hottopics/Haiti.html [charitywatch.org]
Re:The low amount and high publicity is key (Score:3, Informative)
By the way, if every person in the world sends me 1 penny (just ONE penny) via paypal to me at ***lotsofburpspaypalaccount***, then I will be very happy.
If everyone sends ANYONE a penny via paypal - paypal will be happier than you.
Re:you don't understand Haiti (Score:3, Informative)
Many people buy water in containers. This can be a sizable chunk of their budget.
It really is horrible, and always has been. Look:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_Haiti [wikipedia.org]
Note the distinction between "broad definition" and "house connections". The city water situation is 24% house connection, 28% something else, and 48% **nothing** at all. (BTW, elsewhere I get a figure of "less than half" having access to clean drinking water)
Also note the "mostly intermittent" continuity of supply. Having a house connection doesn't mean you can rely on getting water.
This is the pre-quake situation. Haiti is like a chunk of sub-saharan Africa transplanted to the Western Hemisphere. You get it all: HIV, half the houses built without title to the land, automatic weapons fired in the streets, no sanitation, a single fire station, corruption from top to bottom, lack of school attendance, extremely young population, half the kids undersized from malnutrition...
Haitians are dying left and right in the best of times.