Text Messaging Provides Boon to Red Cross Haiti Relief

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on January 19, 2010 - 9:21am.

Washington - Text-message donations are playing a larger-than-expected role in the push for earthquake relief in Haiti, The New York Times Reported. As of late Sunday, the American Red Cross said that it had collected pledges of about $103 million, including $22 million through a program in which cell phone users can donate $10 by texting "90999."

"I need a better word than 'unprecedented' or 'amazing' to describe what's happened with the text-message program," Red Cross spokesman Roger Lowe told the paper.

Lowe said that the National Football League (NFL) greatly aided the effort over the weekend by promoting the texting program during its playoff broadcasts.

Spearheaded by the State Department, in conjunction with Colorado-based mobile technology firm mGive, the effort raised $5 million in its first day, breaking the previous one-day record of about $450,000, according to The Washington Post.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/posttech/2010/01/a_record_22_million_has.html

http://www.redcross.org