Earthquake Moves Mobile Donors
by Jane Litchfield

News of the Jan. 12 earthquake in already impoverished Haiti moved people around the world. Immediately after the tragedy, the giving began. Ordinary citizens mobilized to help - many of them reaching for their mobile phones.

Text donations are really in their infancy in Canada. The Mobile Giving Foundation (MGF) only launched here late last year. But the mobile giving response to the earthquake raised more in its first few days in Canada than the entire first year of mobile giving in the U.S. in 2008, according to Jim Manis, CEO and chairman of the Mobile Giving Foundation.

By Feb. 2, mobile donations through that organization had surpassed $500,000 at $5 a text. That's across all the organizations the MGF represents in Canada, including the Red Cross, Plan Canada, World Vision, UNICEF and The Salvation Army. In the U.S., texters pledged $12 million to the American Red Cross alone in the first four days.

Donating via mobile removes many of the barriers to giving. People simply text a keyword to a shortcode. In Canada, for example, donors could text "REDCROSS" to 30333 to donate $5. They also needed to reply to a confirmation message, however, to complete the transaction. The donation is added to the phone bill, along with service fees charged by the carrier. Many carriers in North America waived this fee for Haiti donations. Messages on CNN.com, Facebook, and Twitter urged people to donate via text.

The wave of Haiti-related mobile donations reflects the immediacy of today's multimedia environment. The heartbreaking images online and on television can spur donations in the heat of the moment; donors don't even have to leave the couch. Plus, people who might not be willing to make the effort for a larger donation have an easy option.

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