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.

well done, humans.

[antimatt]

it seems i may have underestimated you.

The low amount and high publicity is key

[gurps_npc]

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.

let's follow the money

[NetNinja]

Is there a way to follow all this money closely. One slip up in mismanagement and this phenomenon is history.

This will not treat the true cause

[brian0918]

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 [wikipedia.org], 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.

Re:pointless...

[afidel]

Uh, they need things like water *yesterday*, but I'm not sure if any amount of money can get the basics they need in time, only so many flights can land at the airport per day (and they can't fly in the big boys like the C5 Galaxy) and the port has no cranes to unload ships. Supplying water to ~3.2M people is a huge order even with nearly unlimited resources, for instance the Nimitz class carrier the navy brought to the area can make ~400k gallons of fresh water a day, but that's just a drop in the bucket compared to what's needed.

Re:The low amount and high publicity is key

[commodore64_love]

Actually I'm anti-materialism, so I have zero interest in cars, TVs, or other junk. Hell the computer I'm typing on was built in 2002! Instead I'd probably follow in Benjamin Franklin's footsteps, save the extra ~$25,000 per year in my bank, and then retire when I'm circa 40.

After that I'd just tinker around, trying to help people wherever I could.

BTW it isn't "the government's money". They didn't sweat and labor to earn it. I did.

Re:let's follow the money

[xirusmom]

So, my question to you is: Can you volunteer full time, half time? Specially right know, who can afford to leave their jobs for weeks to go to Haiti to volunteer full time?
10% overhead is a very reasonable figure if we cannot bother to get our butts out of the couch and go there ourselves.

Proud to be American

[sponga]

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

Re:let's follow the money

[eln]

Charitable organizations, like any organization, need permanent staff to operate efficiently. You might get college kids to work for you over the summer for nothing but room and board, but no one will work for you on any kind of long-term basis for that. If you want long-term employees, particularly skilled employees, you have to pay for them. Sure, they might work for you for less than they could get in the private sector (and many do), but they still need money to feed their own families.

Saying you refuse to give to any charities because there may be some amount of waste in them is just a way for you to rationalize your own selfishness. The fact is these organizations do far more good than any of us would be capable of or willing to do on our own. Because we won't or can't go out and dig new wells in Africa or help rebuild houses in Haiti or any of the other things these charities do, we give money to them to help them do it instead. They in turn hire people who know how to do this stuff in the most effective and efficient way possible.

Re:let's follow the money

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

That may or may not be an especially good idea.

There are definitely "charities" that, even if not total scams, spend far too much on paying their CEOs and executive directors and so forth, and sending them on important fact finding missions to poor(but pleasantly sunny) places. You definitely want to avoid those.

However, the point of a charity is not to assemble the greatest concentration of self-sacrificing moral goodness available; but to turn donations(in dollars or in kind) into results that match the stated goal of the charity. The measure of a charity's efficiency, and thus its worth as a possible donation recipient, is determined by how efficiently it does so. There are most likely some cases where volunteers are, in fact, the most efficient means. There are others where expensive experts are, in all likelihood, the most efficient.

You donate to a charity because you want your money to effect its goals, whether the goals are pulling people out of the rubble, vaccinating children, reducing unplanned pregnancies, filing FOIA requests, or whatever. Why judge them on how they distribute their resources, rather than on how efficiently they achieve their results?

Re:And how many won't give?

[XanC]

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"?

Re:This will not treat the true cause

[Chineseyes]

I will get modded to hell for this but as someone who is of Haitian decent and has family there right now the true cause of the corruption is bribery from states, corporations and even the IMF. The rice riots are a perfect example [counterpunch.org] When the IMF loaned much needed money to Haiti it came with requirements that they open the country to "Free Trade" (Many Haitian politicians got their palms greased in this deal then left the country) when that happened American corporations flooded the market with cheap food which sounds great at first but when you consider the fact that the majority of the population made its living as farmers it doesn't sound so great. Farmers either lost their businesses or were forced into what amounted to virtual slavery for corporations who conveniently had money to lend them in their hour of need as long as they grew the crops (which were largely inedible) that the corporations wanted. Now you say "It all worked out great the farmers now have jobs, everything worked out for all parties!"

WRONG, the corporations paid the farmers pathetic prices for their crops because they were desperate and with agriculture being the only means of earning a living everyone in the country turned to farming, they tore down every tree in site in order to use every bit of land so they could earn enough just to survive. The worst part about this happened much later, with large areas of land in Haiti virtually treeless due to over-farming, Haiti got pounded by hurricanes three years in a row. With no trees to hold the ground into place when there was flooding large areas of land simply washed away killing thousands.

If the world really wants to help Haiti we need to do three things....

1.) Forgive much of Haiti's debt
2.) Lift all of the ridiculous restrictions that came with the debt
3.) Restrict foreign corporations and states from meddling in the country's politics

you don't understand Haiti

[r00t]

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!