Update: As of late Monday afternoon, the total from the Red Cross text-to-donate campaign had reached $22 million.
Website Magazine recently published 5 Signs that 2010 will be The Year of Mobile. Unfortunately, the article did not include any mention of the increasing use of mobile phones for philanthropy, plus it was published before the Haiti crisis.
Now, not even one week after the massive earthquake in Haiti, we certainly know that mobile giving has broken through the sound barrier and taken off.
By the weekend, the American Red Cross had raised more than $10 million for Haiti relief through its text-to-give campaign. Several other charities were raising money through mobile means as well, but the Red Cross was raising the most.
C.B. Barthlow of mGive, which is working with the Red Cross, reached just as the Red Cross Campaign had crossed the $10 million mark, said, "Over the last three days the response from American Citizens was so immediate in action, so coordinated in execution, so universal in theme, it's clear that we live in a time that whenever a cry for help goes out HELP arrives."
The question is: why did mobile giving take off during this crisis? More...
Photo by Kick Images/Getty Images
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