Haiti Relief Effort Does Twitter

A young boy receives treatment at a makeshift medical clinic at the UN logistics base in Port-au-Prince. Photograph: Logan Abassi/AFP/Getty Images

FINAL TALLY, February 1st, 2009: 428 mentions were obtained through the Twitter effort resulting in a donation of $4,280 to Haiti Relief. Thank you to everyone who participated with a mention and/or helped to spread the word out about our efforts. Thank you especially to Todd and Donnette for coming up with this idea.
As soon as they are made available to me, I will post the donation receipts. Thank you again.


UPDATE: If you have further questions about this Twitter fundraising effort, please read the FAQ at the end of this post. It should answer any questions you may have.

So, it's Friday the 22nd of January and if you didn't read my last post and have no idea what the Haiti Relief Effort is, please read it either before or after you read this.
My efforts to channel a very generous sponsor's money to Haiti Relief have been noticed and acted upon by two very kind souls, Todd and Donnette, who emailed me a couple of days ago with the idea of spreading the fundraiser to Twitter, which the sponsor agreed to with certain limitations.

So here's what you essentially need to know:

• A Twitter account named @MentionHaiti has been created to raise more funds for Haiti.
• If you mention this account once (@MentionHaiti) in your twitter feed, 2 things will happen: 

        1) Your name will be added to a list in @MentionHaiti's account.
        2) For each name that is added to the list, $10 will be raised toward            Haiti Relief.

• The cap on the amount that can be raised in this way is $50,000, so to participate you must be one of the first 5,000 people to include @MentionHaiti in a tweet.
• Once the cap of 5,000 people has been reached, the account will continue operating and posting new links on ways to help Haiti and the only request is that the listed people mention these posts from time to time.

The comment program from the last post is still active, let me remind you of the basic points:

• For each comment you leave on this blog until January 31st, $10 will be donated to Haiti Relief by my sponsor, a Gulf State Embassy here in London. 

• You may leave one comment per post on as many posts as you like, each one raising $10 toward relief.   A few people have raised nearly $1000 by just leaving a comment on nearly every post in the blog.  The only restriction is that you may not leave multiple comments on the same post.

And in case any of you are wondering if I'll get back to posting regularly soon, I'm writing a post right now, just haven't had time to finish it.
  
FAQ

What is the purpose of @MentionHaiti? 
We are trying to create an easy way for people to demonstrate their support for the victims of the earthquake in Haiti and reward this demonstration of support by having our sponsors donate money to disaster relief for Haiti. 

Who is the sponsor donating the money to? 
Doctors Without Borders.

Why did you choose Doctors Without Borders? 
Doctors Without Borders has been working in Haiti since 1991, and has a well established presence with 813 full-time staff permanently on site. At the moment this number is augmented by whatever additional relief staff can make it to Haiti. Doctors Without Borders provides comprehensive trauma care at the Trinité Trauma Centre and Pacot Rehabilitation Center in Port-au-Prince. In 2008, 17,950 patients were treated in the emergency room, and 6,196 underwent surgery. Trinité is the only functioning trauma centre in Port-au-Prince.

Doctors Without Borders strives to operate efficiently and to minimize fundraising and administrative costs. Between 1995 and 2006, more than 85 percent of expenditure to MSF's social mission was allocated to programs and public education activities. Maintaining this standard is a high priority for them. You can see their annual financial statements here: http://www.msf.org.uk/annualaccounts.aspx

Who are the sponsors of the @MentionHaiti campaign? 
The sponsor is a Gulf State embassy in London that wishes to remain anonymous.

What countries are considered to be Gulf States? 
The following countries are in the the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf  Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the sultanate of Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
    
Why does the Gulf State embassy in London want their sponsorship to remain anonymous? 
It is part of their culture to not be boastful about giving. Publicizing charitable activities is considered improper.

What assurances do I have that the sponsor will actually donate the money if I @MentionHaiti?
Right now you have to trust that money will be donated.  When the donation is made
receipts of the donation will be posted on the blog.

I want to help Haiti.  How can I help?
If you add @MentionHaiti in any Tweet you will be added to one of our Twitter lists and $10 will be donated to Doctors Without Borders. This includes simply replying to @MentionHaiti so you do not have to make it a tweet all of your followers will see, although that would obviously help get the word out.

We also want to inform people about the current conditions in Haiti, the progress being made with disaster relief in Haiti and how social media and the Internet is being used to raise funds and organize relief efforts.  If you find great articles related to these subjects please include (cc @MentionHaiti) with your updates that link to these and we will RT your update.

Is there a limit to how much can be raised via the @MentionHaiti Twitter campaign?
Yes.  Our sponsor, a Gulf State embassy in London, will donate up to $50,000.  Which means that the first 5000 people to @MentionHaiti will be put in one of our @MentionHaiti lists and $10 donated for each list member.

Can I @MentionHaiti in Tweets more than once?
Yes.  Your first Tweet with @MentionHaiti raises $10 for Haiti, all subsequent Tweets after the first one will not raise additional funds for Haiti, but helps us get more people to @MentionHaiti.  We appreciate that.

I want to help raise more than $10 how can I do that?
You can comment on every blog post at http://saffronandblueberry.blogspot.com and $10 will be donated for every single comment in the blog  (with a limitation of one comment per post) which means by taking less than 2 hours of your time volunteered will raise over $1000.

Is there any limit to the amount of money that can be raised by commenting on the blog?
Per person, the limitation is $1090 because there are 109 posts on the blog.  Overall, there is no limit however.

Millions of people could comment on the blog.  Isn't it risky to not have a limit on what could be contributed?
We would like to have the problem of too many people commenting on the blog.  If it comes to that, the sponsor can declare a cap to the amount that can be raised on the blog. Please comment on as many posts as you can to raise money for Haiti.

Does the blog benefit from the comments in any way?
No, the blog has no ads or corporate sponsors and thus derives no revenue from traffic. Of course, if you find the food articlesinteresting please come back and visit the blog or subscribe to it.

I'd like to be a sponsor is that possible?
Yes.  Please contact us.

What do I have to lose from doing this?
The only effort that is required is to click Reply & Update to any update found at http://twitter.com/MentionHaiti.  That is it.
Try it.  Spreading the message and raising money for Haiti is a great thing that you can do to help victims of the earthquake in Haiti.