New media helps swell DEC Haiti Appeal total to more than £50m

New media helps swell DEC Haiti Appeal total to more than £50m

News (International)

Two weeks after the devastating earthquake struck Haiti, the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) Appeal stands at more than £50m (as at 28th January), with new media channels ‘instrumental’ to the millions of pounds raised each day.

Donations have been made via phone, web, but also include corporate, postal, events, text and over-the-counter donations.

Between the time the DEC first announced its appeal on twitter on Wednesday 13th January, a day after the earthquake struck, and the launch of the TV appeal on 15th January, £8m had been raised online.

Liz Goodey, head of research at the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), says of the donations made to Haiti relief, “This is an overwhelming response. While most  people have been moved by images on news programmes and in the newspapers, social networking has been instrumental in not only spreading the word of the appeal, but also in enabling charities to show how donations are being spent and how donations have and will help the people of Haiti.”

A survey of more than 1,000 adults carried out for CAF over the weekend of 23rd-24th January shows that nearly half of the UK population (48%) had already donated to the Haiti disaster appeal. Of those who hadn’t given, nearly two-thirds (62%) said they might, or planned to in the future.

New media donations

It is clear that the use of new technology, including the relatively new phenomenon of social networking, has greatly contributed to the success of the Haiti appeal.

Social networking sites Facebook and twitter drove the highest number of referrals to the DEC website after the BBC and bloggers showed their support by adding DEC banners and buttons to hundreds of UK blogs. The DEC twitter campaign now has more than 2,500 followers and 15,000 fans on Facebook. 

According to the DEC the ability to pool resources on sharing sites and to follow the DEC’s 13 member agencies through newly implemented twitter ‘lists’ has “proved invaluable to the committee in updating the public on developments”.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown also ‘tweeted’ during a visit to the DEC offices on 15th January, thanking donors for their support and reassuring the public that aid would successfully reach Haiti in a timely manner. The government has pledged £20m to help the relief effort.

DEC chief executive Brendan Gormley said, “Social networking has proven itself as a valuable addition to the fundraising machine. I’m thrilled that we have been able to quickly communicate and engage the UK public, who have in turn responded with tremendous generosity to help the people of Haiti who so urgently need our help.”

While it is also not possible at this stage to get a detailed breakdown for the route of donations, especially as those from events and by post are still arriving, the DEC estimates that around a third were made online (not including SMS). Some of its members have reported higher proportions – the British Red Cross says 43% of its total so far has come from online sources, while World Vision reports that 65% of its donations were made online.

Meanwhile, theBigGive.org.uk used match funding to raise £100,000 in under a week for 12 Haiti emergency appeals. It created an emergency matched fund using gifts from major donors to double online donations from the public.

US donations

In the US, the Chronicle of Philanthropy estimated that up to Tuesday 26th January, donors had contributed more than $470m (£291m) to 39 US non-profit groups. It reported that the pace of giving for Haiti is running ahead of the amount donated in the same period after the September 11 attacks in 2001 and the Asian tsunamis in 2004, but slower than the outpouring of gifts after the flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Again, new methods of giving made a major difference. In the first eight days, the American Red Cross had received a record $29m (£18m) through its campaign to encourage $10 gifts through texts. In contrast, it raised $200,000 from texts during the 2008 hurricane season.

US corporates have also pledged more than $122m (£76m) including cash and in-kind contributions in the two weeks following the earthquake, according to the US Chamber of Commerce’s Business Civic Leadership Center (BCLC). This is the third highest level of corporate response to a natural disaster. Businesses donated $1.08 bn (£0.7 bn) to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 and $566m (£351m) to the Asian tsunami appeals.

To date, 299 companies have contributed to Haiti relief efforts with 49 of these companies having donated $1m (£0.6m) or more.

Warnings

The Charity Commission has issued warnings about a number of online scams designed to steal charitable donations. These can take the form of fictitious appeal websites, email appeals that falsely use the name of genuine charities, or appeals from fictitious charities. The Commission urged the public to continue giving but to be vigilant.

Disaster giving

CAF has been monitoring the UK public response to overseas emergency appeals since the Asian tsunami of Christmas 2004, collecting data on the 2008 Burma cyclone and the Asia-Pacific disasters of 2009 – the Samoan tsunami, Indonesian earthquake, and flooding due to the cyclone in the Philippines and Vietnam. The CAF Disaster Monitor found that levels of giving were the highest in 2004, when 81% of the UK public claimed to have contributed to the £392m raised by the DEC tsunami appeal. 23% of people donated to the 2008 and 2009 appeals.

Related link: The legacy of  disaster: lessons for Haiti

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