Around 18 million euros has been collected via SMS to help victims of the deadly earthquake in the central Italian region of Abruzzo.
The fundraising service which was set up right after the earthquake.
The money was collected on behalf of Italy’s department of civil protection and the telecommunications companies did not charge any fees for the charity service.
SMS is clearly a powerful medium for donating. Red Nose day in the UK also used it to huge advantage. They key issue, as always, is that not all charities have sufficient weight to get the network operators to pass on 100% of the donation.
One can only imagine how much additional funds charities could earn if they were to change their stance.