One of the lasting benefits of the Internet is it's ability to quickly rally resources. The latest proof point: raising funds for Haitian earthquake relief. The big Internet companies, such as Amazon, Google, Bing, Craigslist and PayPal, post links almost immediately to provide site visitors with a trusted path to donate funds (see screenshots below). 

Consumers trust those companies and visit frequently, so it's a great way to raise awareness and funds. But there's another group of Internet powerhouses that historically have not participated in Web-based fundraising: financial institutions.

Even during the New Orleans flooding in 2005, we found only three top-50 banks linking to the Red Cross. It's not a whole lot better this time. But one major bank, Citibank, has a homepage link to earthquake relief (screenshots below). Also, we found two other top-50 banks with homepage links: Astoria Federal and Webster Bank (see screenshots below). None of the largest 10 credit unions had links up on Saturday.

Several major banks, such as Wells Fargo and Chase, have homepage references to their own donations, but no way for their customers to participate directly. 

Online bill-pay fundraising
Another welcome addition to bank-enabled fundraising was launched by Online Resources just two days after the earthquake hit. The bill-pay provider created banners and splash pages for its clients to use in publicizing the availability of bank bill pay for use in donating to the Red Cross (see inset right and top of the page; link to ORCC page with examples).

As of Friday, ORCC had commitments from about 10 clients to participate in the effort.

Mobile fundraising
It was also interesting to see the role mobile is taking in the current crisis. Websites and television networks have done a great job publicizing a simple way to donate $10 to the Red Cross: text "Haiti" to the shortcode 90999. Once you authorize the transaction via a return text message, $10 is automatically added to your mobile phone bill. The service is powered by mGive, a nonprofit based in Colorado. In a Friday blog post, the organization said $8.5 million had been raised so far, a number likely exceeding $10 million by now.

Banks with links: Citibank, Astoria, and Webster Bank (18 Jan. 2010)

 Links for Haitian relief at Google, PayPal, Amazon, Craigslist, and Microsoft Bing (18 Jan. 2010, 11 AM PDT)

I love how the Internet removes friction from everyday tasks, especially payment-related ones. And one of the great success stories of recent years, beginning with Hurricane Katrina relief in August 2005, is how easy it is to make charitable gifts online.

I've used the Red Cross site several times. It gets the job done, but not with the flair and superb user experience of Donors Choose (note 1). 

Thanks to Fred Wilson, blogging at A VC, I contributed to the Social Media Challenge last week and got a first-hand look at Donors Choose. The simple checkout process has three features that I'd not seen before:

• Amazon Payments as a payment choice (along with PayPal, credit card, or check; first screenshot)
• Automated Facebook wall post integration (second screenshot)
• Automated Twitter posting with two options:
  -- allow Donors Choose to Tweet a thank-you to you referencing your @twittername
  -- provides a template for you to make a Tweet from your own Twitter account

If you want to see a state-of-the-art checkout system in action, and support kids in the classroom, check out Donors Choose.

Or if you are looking to add a charitable-giving feature to your banking site for the holidays, you can easily create your own giving page at Donors Choose and run a widget on your website tracking the campaign's progress (see inset). You can choose which projects to support so long as they fall within the nonprofit's mission of "helping students in need."

Donors Choose cart with Amazon Payments and PayPal integration (13 Oct 2009)

Facebook wall post integration
This screen popped up after I checked out

Twitter integration

Donors Choose shout-out page on Twitter (link)
Note: First Tweet was Sep 29. Have done 342 since then (through 13 Oct 2009).

Note:
1. My first donation via Amazon Payments failed because I accidentally used a canceled credit card number. And evidently there is a bit of a bug in the feedback loop to the Donors Choose site. I got an error message, but when I clicked "next" to re-enter the payment, the site transferred me out to the thank-you page and I was unable to go back and re-do the transaction. I had to start all over again, and now the site shows that I've made two donations instead of one.