Re: UKNM: Disaster in Central America

[neville clarke]

I second RT's suggestion. We have been running a story on Hurricane Mitch

and wanted to give a URL for those in the UK who wanted to make a donation.

In the United States, the American Red Cross have a site and a secure link

for sending contributions: <http://www.redcross.org/donate/debit1.html>

We spent considerable time trying to find a UK equivalent without success.

It appears that not one of the dozen or so charities associated with the UK

Disasters Emergency Committee appeal has such a thing.

Neville Clarke


A propos, the following appeared today (Friday) on Wired News web site:

<http://www.wired.com/news/news/email/explode-infobeat/culture/story/16231.h

tml>

"Positive Chain Reaction

by Ronald Warren Deutsch 

3:00 a.m.  13.Nov.98.PST

You're deluged every day by chain emails promising good fortune if you

forward a message to 20 friends. And the stream of Monica Lewinsky jokes

seems endless. So, you might miss one urging you to open your wallet and

help the American Red Cross campaign for disaster relief from Hurricane

Mitch. 

"We all love the Internet. Now let's show its true power by creating the

largest network of giving in history," the email proposes. The message asks

the receiver to send a US$5 donation to the Red Cross and forward the mail

to five other people. Says American Red Cross spokeswoman Ann Andrews,

"It's great, but we didn't send it out." 

"The devastation of Hurricane Mitch floored me," says Erik Hannah, a

28-year-old advertising executive in New York. "I spent a great deal of

time in Central America and Mexico. Towns which I slept in had been washed

away overnight. Friends were missing." 

Hannah started a food and clothing drive at the office but decided he had

to do more. He hit upon the idea of an email plea. 

Posted to various newsgroups, the message encourages donations and asks

recipients to forward the email to friends hoping to create, in Hannah's

words, "an instant worldwide relief campaign." 

Donations to the Red Cross in the last week, from online and traditional

channels, "have been unprecedented," says Andrews. "The response has even

surpassed that of Oklahoma City." It's not clear how Hannah's email has


bolstered those contributions. 

Still, Hannah says, within 48 hours of posting the message, he received

replies from as far away as Russia. 

"Most told how they had made a generous donation to their local Red Cross

office," he says. "It proved to me the good which can result when the power

of the people meets the power of the Internet." ENDQUOTE



At 09:35 13/11/98 -0000, RT wrote:

>Big long ad on TV last night (Thurs) for the combined aid agency disaster

>relief fund. Gave out credit card hotline numbers for donations but no URL.

>

>I know various members of this list have charitable clients. Couldn't

>someone suggest setting up a quick donation site with banner/button ad for

>other sites to use to help drive traffic? Or has it already been done and

>they didn't think it worth quoting the URL on TV?

>

>RT

>

>Disaster fund donations hotline: 0990 222233


Neville Clarke

AIRWISE - The Independent Airport and Air Travel Guide


http://www.airwise.com/


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