Facebookers Donate to Haiti
More than one-third of Facebook users in the US, UK and Australia have donated money and/or goods to relief efforts aimed at the January 12, 2010 earthquake which struck Haiti, according to a joint survey conducted by Facebook and The Nielsen Company.
Money Leads the Way
Donations of money were by far the most popular type of aid provided by Facebook users in the US, UK and Australia, with 32% sending money to earthquake relief efforts. Another 4% donated goods (such as clothing, blankets and food) and 3% donated both money and goods. A total of 39% of Facebook users in these three countries have made some type of donation to earthquake relief so far. Broken down by gender, female Facebook users have been more generous, with 46% of females making some type of donation compared to 32% of males.
US Leads Texting
A total of 13% of Facebook users in the three countries have sent a monetary donation using text messages via mobile phone. Among US Facebook users, that number rises to 23%, compared to 15% in the UK and only 6% in Australia.
Overall, age was not a significant factor in text-based donations, with 14% of teens 13-17 donating via text and 12% of adults 50 and over texting donations. Gender was also not a factor, with 14% of total female Facebook users and 13% of total male Facebook users donating via text.
More Help is Planned
A significant percentage of Facebook users who have not yet made an earthquake relief donation plan to do so. Twenty-one percent of Facebook users in the three countries have not made a donation but say they plan to. Teens 13-17 were more than twice as likely as adults 50-plus to have plans for donation, with 29% of teens and 13% of adults 50-plus saying they plan to donate. However, adults 50-plus have already donated at a much higher rate, 61%, than teens, 36%.
Corporations Seen as Flinty
A majority of Facebook users in the three countries, 29%, say corporations are doing enough to help, while 42% say they are not doing enough to help. US Facebook users have better feelings toward corporations than their compatriots in the UK and Australia, with 33% saying corporations are doing enough and 40% saying they are not. By comparison, 24% of UK users say corporations are doing enough and 46% say they are not, while only 19% of Australian users say they are doing enough and 47% say they are not.
Haiti Text Donations Demonstrate Key Voice/Data Trend
Telecom provider Avaya recently released a list of top 10 voice and data communications trends for 2010. The growing prevalence of text-based donations to Haitian earthquake relief is an example of trend number three on the list: the rise of communications-enabled business processes (CEBP). CEBP involves using the latest communications workflow tools, such as mobile phones and text messaging, to automate key processes associated with collecting and processing data. Although technically charitable donations are not “workflow,” text-based donations do use leading-edge communications technologies to vastly simplify and streamline their collection and processing.
About the survey: The survey was conducted January 20 and 21, 2010 amongst 50,641 Facebook users ages 13 and older, in the U.S., U.K. and Australia by The Nielsen Company and Facebook.