Red Cross logo.

Red Cross logo.

Detail map of Port-au-Prince, Turgeau, Ouest Department, Haiti,Northern Cape, South Africa

A: Port-au-Prince, Turgeau, Ouest Department, Haiti, B: Northern Cape, South Africa

Donating by SMS Text Begins

7/2008 to 1/13/2010
Zain press release.

Zain press release.

After the disastrous earthquake in Haiti in 2010 you could send aid money by text message on your cell phone, and $10 was put on your cell phone bill. In the case of the Red Cross you could "send a $10 Donation by Texting ‘Haiti’ to 90999", or you could donate by phone or by credit card on the Red Cross website, or through social networking sites. This campaign raised over $32 million within one month of the disaster. 

When I read about the 2010 mobile donating campaign I had not previously heard of fundraising by SMS text. In reviewing this entry in September 2020 I learned through the Wikipedia article on Mobile donating that in 2008 the American Red Cross, in collaboration with the Wireless Foundation, raised money to provide relief for disasters including Hurricane Gustav and Hurrican Ike, and in South Africa, "Nelson Mandela’s charity raised $85,000 USD in July 2008 with the cooperation of Zain, a South African mobile operator, using Mandela’s 90th birthday as the ‘call to give’; well-wishers from around the world could text in a birthday wish and make a donation at the same time.[4]"

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