Haiti Aid – Comment, Blog and Mr Credit Card Will Match

By now, you will all have been bombarded with news about Haiti. The scale of the disaster is just simply massive and the amount of suffering that is happening is just unthinkable. For many of us, getting there physically to help on the ground is not feasible. We can only say our prayers and make a donation to organizations that are on the ground helping out in the relief efforts. When the incident first appeared on the news, Mrs Credit Card and myself knew at the back of our head that we will chip in with some donations. Which left the task of deciding which organization should we donate to? But we also procrastinated (yes – lame excuses – I was actually learning to ski last week!). Then yesterday at church, there was an announcement that UMCOR (which is the United Methodist Committee on Relief) is affiliated with the church we go to and they have been in Haiti since 2005. They currently have 14 projects going on and one of them is obviously the urgent need for relief from the devastating earthquake. We also found out that 100% of the proceeds from donations go towards the relief effort. So Mrs Credit Card and myself have decided to make our donations to UMCOR.

And to spread the word around and encourage others to chip in as well, we’ve decided to do the following. We’ve decided to challenge our readers to give as well and we will make matching donations to UMCOR. So this is how we’ll do it.

1. For our readers who comment on this post – We will make a $1 donation for every comment on this post. Originally, we just wanted folks to tell us how they are helping and who they have donated to. But to prevent lots of “I donated $x to xyz organization” type post, we’ve decided to make it more interesting by requiring the following :

2. For our readers who are actually in Haiti helping out – If you are actually in Haiti and helping on the ground and you tell us about it on this post, we will make a $1 donation. But rather than just simply saying “I’m here”, please tell us

3. If you are donating using your credit card – We’ll make a $1.50 donation if you are actually donating to a charity organization through a credit card. You have to tell us in your comment as to which card you used, how you did it, with points or cash. (hey what else did you expect from me!)

Bloggers who blog about how they are helping in the relief efforts – I was thinking about approaching some of my blogging partners and friends to help spread the word about this. Then, while “surfing the net”, I realized that Crystal from Money Saving Mom had actually initiated something like this among her Mommy and Coupon Bloggers. So taking a leaf and further inspiration from her, I’ll make a $5 donation for any personal finance blogger (or any blogger for that matter) that blogs about how they are actually helping out (whether it be a donation or going to Haiti physically) or if you initiate something similar to what we are doing here. All you have to do to inform me is to submit the page where you wrote about it below in the little widget box.

I’ll leave comments open till this Friday.

Organizations to consider – There are many organizations to consider if you decide to make any donations to Haiti. Here are a couple of examples.

www.usaid.gov – which is an independent federal agency that has been the principal U.S. agency to extend assistance to countries recovering from disaster, trying to escape poverty, and engaging in democratic reforms.

Red Cross – Here is where you can make an online donation.