Social Media Aid: The New Normal in Disasters?

Marcia Stepanek | Tuesday 19th January 2010

Much has been said about how the mobile Internet and social media are helping to imbue our everyday lives with a restless sense of urgency, for better or worsewhat Twitter conference promoter Jeff Pulver calls "the State of Now." But this week, given Haiti's troubles, it's clear that there's one upside of this "nowism" that has become irrefutable: mass-mobile, location-aware micro-donations to people in need around the globe.

Not convinced? Never before have people donated money to disaster relief at the scale and speed and ease as they have in response to the Haiti earthquake, social media experts agree. This time around, Twitter, texting and social networks led and created swarms of instant-givers.

And what a mobile outpouring it's been: according to the Mobile Giving Foundation, a nonprofit that works with wireless companies and charities to set standards for text-message donations, contributions made via mobile phones to Haiti rescue efforts during the first 36 hours after the quake had topped $7 million. That tally included all the short message codes managed by the organization, and it's a mobile giving record for funds raised for a single cause that keeps swelling.

Meanwhile, the American Red Crossdespite the criticism it got during Hurricane Katrina for telling donors their money would be used in New Orleans, when it sometimes wasn't says it has raised $22 million so far for Haiti through hundreds of thousands of $10 "text" donations. The Red Cross is coordinating its first-ever texting campaign with a mobile donations firm called mGive, and the outpouring is part of a larger surge of money flowing into international Red Cross coffers for the devastated nation: nearly half of Red Cross donations to Haiti since the quake have come in via texting. As of Thursday night, the international Red Cross [the U.S. arm included] was saying that it had raised some $35 million via mobile texts and Twitter blasts and Facebook appeals; the National Football League's promotion of text-message donations during its weekend playoff games produced "stunning results," The New York Times reported today, with money "coming in at the rate of $500,000 an hour." Roger Lowe, a Red Cross spokesman, told the Times: "I need a better word than 'unprecedented' or 'amazing' to describe what's happened with the text-message program." [Perspective check: Mobile donations for Hurricane Katrina in 2005 were just $250,000, says Jim Manis, chief executive of the Mobile Giving Foundation.]

And that's not all. The citizen text-boom has led many companies to join the mobile aid party, as speed-of-giving remains critical as thousands continue to die in Haiti by the hour. Early on, Skype sent $2 vouchers to all of its customers in Haiti, allowing them to make up to one-hour's worth of calls to the United States. T-Mobile, meanwhile, dropped all charges for calls and texts to Haiti through the end of the month, while other carriers are waiving charges for "donation texts." Text-message donation campaigns will, no doubt, become the first line of response for many more cause activists in the months and years ahead.

But donor, beware: while SMS donations speed up donations, they don't necessarily hasten money to the cause. Normally, it can take up to 90 days for some text donations to make their way to those in need. "SMS makes it quick to give but longer to collect," Katrin Verclas of mobileactive.org told Public Radio International earlier this week. In recent days, mGive has waived the fees it would normally charge the Red Cross for processing texted donations. Meanwhile, Verizon and some other mobile carriers are pledging to bypass their usual accounting procedures and forward the money donated right away, rather than wait until customers pay their bills. [Jeffrey Nelson of Verizon Wireless told The New York Times' Bits blog late last week that the change was not permanent and that Verizon would return to its regular accounting practices after the Haitian crisis had passed. Sprint, meanwhile, said it would speed 80 percent of amounts texted to Haiti and AT&T said it was still looking into speeding up donations but had not yet decided whether it would, according to Times reporter Matt Richtel.]

To be sure, "old-fashioned" online giving will still outweigh mobile giving this year. But the takeaway here? Mobile giving is reaching whole new legions of people, from many who may not have given anything before texting made it so easy. Text-donations are giving the "urgency" trend in the marketplaceand donors, at leasta whole new way to define "instant gratification."

But might business do more -- now and in the future -- to support this new trend and speed text aid to the needy? How might mobile carriers and others in the social media business do even more to help the next time disaster strikes? Is it "good business" to charge donors for charity textingor should firms get a tax break if they don't?

What do you think? Is there a middle ground for companies when it comes to disaster aid?

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