Cellphone Companies Advance Text Donations for Red Cross — But Not Other Groups

Because of the scale of the catastrophe in Haiti, cellphone carriers are speeding up the delivery of text-message donations to the American Red Cross — but not necessarily to other relief organizations.

Typically when a donor makes a contribution by text message, it’s 60 to 90 days until the charity actually receives the money. The reason for the lag: Cellphone companies wait until after they have received the money from their customers before sending on the gifts.

On Friday, Verizon announced that it had advanced nearly $3-million to the American Red Cross. The company — whose customers had donated more than $9-million to the Red Cross by Friday — plans to make another advance later this week. But a spokesman for the company says that it does not plan to advance text-message donations to other groups providing aid in Haiti.

AT&T plans to advance payment of the money donated by its customers via text message to the Red Cross, which totaled more than $9-million as of Monday night. A spokeswoman for the company declined to say whether the company would advance donations to other relief organizations.

Starting Friday, Sprint will advance 80 percent of the text-message donations that its customers have made to the five organizations for which it has waived its text-messaging fees: the American Red Cross, International Rescue Committee, William J. Clinton Foundation, Rescue Union Mission and MedCorp International and Yéle Haiti. The organizations will receive the remaining 20 percent on the normal schedule.

The speed with which relief groups receive donations is critical after a major disaster, says Caryl M. Stern, chief executive of the U.S. Fund for Unicef, who urges donors to make contributions online.

“We’re not banks,” she says. “We really need the money. We need it now.”