American Red Cross Haiti Relief: How To Help Haiti Victims, Where To Submit Donations

American Red Cross Haiti outreach has begun and the organization is posting updates on how you can help on its Twitter account, Facebook page, and Disaster Online Newsroom.

The Red Cross has been posting frequent updates to Twitter. Recently, it announced that it is upping its pledge to assist in Haiti relief efforts from $200,000 to $1 million. It also tweeted an excerpt from its Skype conversation with the head of its Haiti delegation.

For those who want to help, the Red Cross is accepting donations through its International Response Fund. You can donate to this fund here.

You can also text "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10 to American Red Cross relief efforts for Haiti. The amount will be added to your cell phone credit card bill.

For more information and breaking news updates, see the American Red Cross Disaster Online Newsroom.

Follow the latest Haiti earthquake breaking news and Haiti earthquake Twitter updates.

Comments

[betrayus]

05:17 AM on 01/21/2010

Hi,

Just a note: make sure when donating money or giving blood to the Red Cross...That you Specifically tell them its for: Haiti....

Or

They will just put your donation etc...into their "General fund" and your contribution may never end up going where you intended it to go.

It will still do some good some where...but the whole point is that the Haitian people...need money and blood...if you can do one or both.

Peace!
Dan
http://redcrosshaiti.org

[oshma]

02:07 PM on 01/27/2010

The Red Cross is very careful to honor donor specifications for every gift. If you specify it will go to Haiti, it will.

HOWEVER:

In order to respond quickly to disasters, people and resources already need to be in place. That means that BEFORE THE EVENT, the Red Cross already had to have offices, people, and warehouses with supplies paid for. (Who do you think was answering the phones the night of the quake?)

Very little of that is donated, because there is nothing in the news to encourage donations of boring goods between disasters. The Red Cross constantly has to raise funds to purchase all this.

An office needs electricity, water, heat, computers, printers, software, etc. A warehouse needs electricity, climate control, forklifts, etc. Vehicles need gas, tires, maintenance, insurance etc. Staff need living wages. All of these require money that cannot come from a restricted donation. This is why a "general fund" is critical to the running of a solid organization.

It is possible for an organization to be broke and have to lay off people, but have lots of money in "earmarked gifts." That is not healthy for the organization or the people it wants to serve. http://www.starnewsonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090505/COLUMNIST/905059973 for the trouble that "all funds to x" causes.

http://www.miamiredcross.org/attachments/057_DSHRC1_pub_0001.pdf for the Red Cross ethics code on p. 4.

[Hollyhock988]

07:19 AM on 01/14/2010

I have been looking at the suffering of the people of Haiti and crying. I decided that I had to do more than cry...I had to help. I feel a little better after having donated to redcross.org now, and will urge all my friends to do the same. I am so proud that people around the world, and especially here in America have stepped up and embraced the people who are crying out for relief.