Update: £31.5m donated to DEC Haiti appeal

Fundraising | Celina Ribeiro | 20 Jan 2010

More than £31.5m has been donated to the Disasters Emergency Commitee Haiti appeal, less than a week after launching the campaign.

The DEC revealed this afternoon that money is continuing to come in, despite public concerns over whether aid is being distributed among the victims of the earthquake.

Online and phone donations account for the majority of the total so far, with corporate, over-the-counter and other gifts still being tallied.

Mobile phone donations

Mobile phone companies have made a one-off commitment to waive processing fees for donations made to the DEC.

While there has been some concern about whether gift aid would be reclaimable on the text donations, a spokeswoman for the DEC told Civil Society that the website allows for donors who have given via SMS to claim gift aid online.

Fundraising scams

The amount of money being given away to the appeals has caught the attention of fraudsters also. A raft of fundraising scams from criminals alleging to be fundraising for either established or made-up aid charities has prompted the Charity Commission to issue a public warning.

The Commission said it “has been made aware of a number of online scams designed to steal donations” and urged the public to be vigilant.

A Charity Commission spokeswoman said that to date it has only been alerted to web-based scams.

Directory: Disasters Emergency Committee

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