It should come as no surprise that one of the most effective ways of raising money for the victims of the earthquake in Haiti, has been through text donations. Leading the group on money raised via texts is American Red Cross who has already raised over 22 million dollars from texts alone with that number growing every day. The way it works is you send a one word text from your phone to a specific number (for example texting “HAITI” to 90999 for the Red Cross) and a certain amount (usually $10 ) is added to your phone bill at the end of the month. Its simple, easy, and quick, but it makes a huge difference for the people in Haiti who really need it.
While The American Red Cross leads in the amount of money donated via texts, it is certainly not the only organization using this tactic. Other popular numbers for text donations include:
- Yele Foundation (By texting “YELE” to 501501)
- Clinton Foundation (By texting “HAITI” to 20222)
- World Vision (By texting “WORLD” to 20222)
- Salvation Army (By texting “HAITI” to 52000)
Through these groups and many others there has been a huge and successful response to this national texting campaign, with money continuing to be raised daily. And other communication mediums are being widely used as well to bring in donations as well. Commercialscontinue to run on TV and play on the radio encouraging people to donate to various relief efforts and many messages are being sent online as well, through websites like twitter and facebook, adding to the donation totals. American people seem to really want to help the people of Haiti during this time of crisis and through all the different types of donation tools avaliable they should be able to find a way to. For the Haitians, every dollar counts and every message sent can help to rebuild there country and provide for its people.
So, have you sent the right message yet?
To see photos of relief efforts going on in Haiti click here.