NEW YORK (AP) — The massive earthquake that devastated Haiti two years ago prompted an outpouring of charitable donations and propelled a new way of giving — through text messages — into the public eye.
A new study from Pew looks at people who sent text donations to help Haiti and agreed to be contacted for a survey. It finds that 80 percent of those surveyed did not donate money through any means other than texting. And the majority of them have contributed to a more-recent disaster recovery effort via text.
Three-quarters of people who donated to Haiti via text message were first-time mobile donors.
Although it’s a random study among those who agreed to be contacted, only 13 percent did. It’s not known whether findings would apply to the remainder.
