U.S. Texts $22 Million in Haiti Relief Aid

The American Red Cross has reported that it received more than $22 million in U.S. text-based donations for Haiti earthquake relief, almost 20% of the American Red Cross's $112 million total raised one week following the disaster.

Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile are all cooperating in the ongoing campaign through the non-profit Mobile Giving Foundation, which allows users to simply text the word "Haiti" to the number 9-0-9-9-9 for $10 donation that appears on the user's monthly mobile bill.

For its part, Verizon also announced Monday that they would make $3 million in donations immediately available. Past text-based donation efforts required the user first pay the bill, delaying fund delivery by months.

The $22 million total smashed the previous American Red Cross record for text-based donations, which was the $400,000 raised in 2005 for Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

The effort illustrates popularity of text messaging and current mobile penetration in the US. According to CTIA, there are 276.6 million wireless subscribers sending 135.2 billion text messages a month as of June 2009.

Source: CTIA