Text Messages Raising Big $$$ for Aid to Haiti

(Jan. 14) -- Cell-phone text messaging is being used to help victims of the deadly Haiti quake in probably the fastest way possible.

Haitian-born musician Wyclef Jean has helped raise more than $400,000 in a joint effort with the Give on the Go campaign, according to the Los Angeles Times. The American Red Cross said it had brought in $800,000 by Wednesday afternoon using the same technique.
The technique for texting a donation is pretty fast and simple: Enter a five- or six-digit code into your cell phone, along with a single word in the body of the text, such as Haiti. The donation amount is added to your next phone bill.

Jean, through his Twitter account, encouraged his followers to donate $5 to Yéle Haiti by sending a text message of "Yéle" to 501501, with the $5 being charged to the donor's cell phone bill.

"Your money will help with relief efforts," Jean's message to his 1.4 million followers read. "They need our help."

The chairman of the Miami-based Give on the Go campaign, Matt McKenna, told the L.A. Times that a higher percentage of donations to his nonprofit group will actually reach those in need because its overheads are lower than groups like the Red Cross.

"Our goal is to raise $1 million per day for the sufferers of this catastrophe," McKenna said.

Mary South, an editor in Brooklyn, N.Y., told Time magazine that she decided to donate $10 by text to the Red Cross on Wednesday after she read a friend's post about it on Facebook.

"I thought if everyone else is doing it, then I can too," said South, who added that she gives to other nonprofits online but had never donated via text message before. "When you see that kind of devastation, you want to do something," she told Time.

The high volume of tweets inspired Twitter's co-founder, Ev Williams, to ask, via a tweet, "I wonder what % of people tweeting to text a donation to Haiti have done so themselves. That's not meant to be cynicism, just curiosity."

AT&T said $10 donations can be sent to the Red Cross International Relief Fund by typing HAITI and sending it to 90999. A confirmation message will arrive within a few minutes, standard text messaging rates will apply, and 100 percent of the money donated will be passed on to the Red Cross.

"This is the first time there has been a major disaster when this type of service has been widely available," says Yéle Haiti's executive director, Hugh Locke, whose nonprofit will use the funds to send nutrition bars, candles, hand-cranked flashlights and blankets to Haiti on two FedEx planes Friday.

"People want a sense of participating in the response," he told Time. "There is an emotional need to do something."