Text messages net over $400,000 for Haitian relief in first day after quake

Superstar musician Wyclef Jean, a native of Haiti, has helped raise over $400,000 for his native country, thanks to text-message donations. Jean and the Miami-based Give On The Go campaign joined forces to encourage people from around the world to send a text message of "Yele" to 501501 on their mobile device which would then charge $5 to the donor's cellular phone bill.

Although a similar way to donate is also being done through the Red Cross, Give On The Go president Matt McKenna said that a higher percentage of the donation will actually reach those in need via his non-profit  because the Red Cross has a larger overhead to cover. "About 91% of every gift" aids the victims of the earthquake, McKenna told The Times via telephone.

"Our goal is to raise $1 million per day for the sufferers of this catastrophe," McKenna declared, noting that Twitter has been abuzz with people urging each other to "text Yele".

The high volume of tweets inspired Twitter co-founder Ev Williams to ask via tweet (naturally), "I wonder what % of people tweeting to text a donation to Haiti have done so themselves. That's not meant to be cynicism, just curiosity." Later Williams added, "The optimistic view: The desire to pass on the message may inspire a greater likelihood of acting on it oneself, having a multiplying effect."

Along those lines, McKenna said that many celebrities and musicians are being organized, and a charity concert appears to be in the works. "It's really gonna blow up over the next couple of days. Thank God we were in place to be involved in this," he said.

"I cannot stress enough what a human disaster this is, and idle hands will only make this tragedy worse," Jean said in a statement released earlier today.

-- Tony Pierce

Photo gallery: Earthquake hits Haiti | Twitter: Reports from Haiti | Resources: How to help

Top photo: Hundreds of people remain in a public square for security reasons or after having lost their homes in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, the day after Tuesday's magnitude 7 quake. Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive quantified the number of dead at "well over 100,000," while Haitian President Rene Preval spoke of possibly tens of thousands. Credit: Orlando Barria / European Pressphoto Agency

Comments

[JTK]

Texting donations is a horribly slow way of donating money. The donation is not actually payed until some time after you pay your phone bill. Text now, pay your bill in a month, and some time after that your phone company will send the actual donation. If you care about sending your money quickly, text messaging is not the way to do it.

Not to mention that Wyclef Jean's charity has a horrible track record and seems to be run as a money machine for he and his friends.

[Nonprofit accountant]

Actually, Terry is right on. And this has nothing to do with race, it's just the truth. Jean's heart is no doubt in the right place. However, with all of this money flowing, transparency is Crucial.

Overhead is unavoidable if an organization is truly doing everything it's supposed to be doing (don't you have to pay the people who make sure the money goes where it's supposed to go? And there are other costs of business that overhead-haters are not considering. It can be minimized, but not eliminated. To suggest otherwise is disengenuous.)

The fact that you can quote Red Cross figures should be considered a plus. The point of being a nonprofit is that you are in business to serve a mission, not for the sake of making money like other businesses. But it is true that the lights have to be on in order for you to serve your mission and do right by your donors.

Please provide links to Yele's IRS filings, because like previous commenters, I cannot find them either.

[Tara]

@fernandez: "i could use a buck, too"??? what amazes me is people who's first thought is of themselves. do you really think your circumstances compare with what the Haitians are suffering?

Re: Wyclef Jean: 1) he immediately flew to Haiti where his foundation is headquartered, yele.org.

Re: Skeptical of Scammers: go to FBI checklist on steps to take to verify a charitable organization & how to avoid the vultures who feed off of other people's tragedy.

[Echoparkgal]

@Terry What you post is pure ignorance. If you had successfully done your due diligence you would have found that there is alot of available information on Mr. Jean's Yele Haiti Foundation on Guidestar and other public record websites, including the most recent 990. By choosing to negate on the fundraising efforts of this recording artist, instead of providing a balanced review of all of the disaster relief organizations out there, most likely your skepticism is based on racial and cultural prejudices. Clearly Mr. Jean has put his face and his reputation on the line to provide all the assistance to Haiti that he can. Like Ms. Jolie and Mr. Pitt, he too has put his money where his mouth is. When you decide to cease with your shoddy couch analysis and headline your own human empowering non-profit, feel free to post your weblinks along with PDFs of your 990s. Otherwise, do shove off and take your half-baked assumptions and mutterings elsewhere.

[KKB]

Analysis of Red Cross' overhead, which has been controversial for years:

http://www.bbb.org/charity-reviews/national/human-services/american-red-cross-in-washington-dc-679 - breakdown of all non-relief costs (they try to break them up between fundraising/18%-admin/4% and ads and events and such, but you can add): they've only recently stopped paying their CEOs high six-figure salaries. I think Liddy Dole was paid $200,000 a year, by way of example. The new kid makes closer to $50,000 now.

In their own words:
"Fund raising costs were 18% of related contributions. (Related contributions, which totaled $782,880,000, are donations received as a result of fund raising activities.)

[Andres Fernandez]

I hope that all the help that is needed is recieved in a timely fashion,with just a little dilligence and oversight I hope what happened with katrina can be avoided Both true disasters that were in need of help least we forget how all were duped by those who were never victims. In this day with all the identy theft give money from your Phone I have heard it all now when you have to pay for calls or charges the provider can't explain, I could use a buck too Please. people will never cease to amaze me.

[8movies5plays]

400k that's it.

We can spend thousands on cellphones.

Thousands on Itunes.

Order 5 dollar coffee drinks.

While God has given us free will to do what we choose , when we want.

God does not love war.

Yet we spend $1.05 trillion dollars allocated to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. See nationalpriorities.org

God has said "At that very hour there was a severe earthquake and a tenth of the city collapsed. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the survivors were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven."

Jesus has said when I was hungry and ill did you assist me.

2 billion is not enough to fix the injured and rebuild Haiti.

Love is the way.

[Terry]

I agree with Monica. I have looked all over the web for objective info. on Wyclef's Yele or its predecessor, the Wyclef Jean Foundation. There is no info at Guidestar, Give.org, or the Charity Navigator on this organization. The last IRS 990 on the web for Wyclef's Foundation is from 2000. People are getting caught up in the hype of celebrity without seeking transparency and accountability and the media is following along. It's easy to make exaggerated claims when you don't have to back it up with a record. Now there is a twitter campaign claiming that 100% of donations to Yele will go directly to the people of Haiti. That is impossible. Media, please do your job. Donors, do your research.

[Kat]

Indeed, I want to be one that can not only retweet this but actually donate. I am very pleased at humanity to see that we could raise this much just with text messages. Shows that even $5 can help if everyone reaches into their pennyjars and finds something.

[Monica Waggoner]

I am highly skeptical about the assertion that more of the donation "directly" helps those in need than donations to the Red Cross. Give on the Go is not an aid organization or non-profit of any kind. They are a Mobile Application Service Provider that works with the Mobile Giving Foundation, which *is* a 501(c)(3). MGF reported on its 2008 990 (found at guidestar.org and obtained by them from the IRS) that they had NO program service expenses (i.e., monies spent on the mission of the organization), but spent $200,600 of their $379,424 revenue on non-employee service providers (legal, accounting, etc.; they have no paid employees), IT, travel, office expenses, etc. They note that they donated $53,756 to other supported charities in that tax year, which is far lower than their total revenue.

Even if Give on the Go's overhead is only 9% (and since they're not a 501(c)(3), I couldn't look up their 990 to verify that), and MGF actually passes through 100% of the money, how are they getting the money to the people who need it? Passing it out on the streets of Port Au Prince? Or are they in fact passing it on to local aid organizations, which in turn have their own overhead costs?

By contrast, the American National Red Cross (the branch that handles international relief) reports that just 9.8% of its 2007 expenses (most recent tax year available) went to overhead costs; the remainder went to program services.

I hope that the Times will pursue more thoroughly how the money donated through Give on the Go's campaign gets to the folks on the ground that need it, and the good it does. You can help a lot of people with $400,000, if you spend it wisely.

[Alexx]

i guess thats great news. i hope that money is used to help the people of haiti that need help.