# DEC adds online donation facility for Asian floods disaster appeal

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2004/12/29/dec-adds-online-donation-facility-asian-floods-disaster-appeal/
- Published: 2004-12-29T00:00:00+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

Four days after the devastating floods in the Bay of Bengal the Disasters Emergency
Committee (DEC) has started accepting online donations for its emergency appeal 
which it launched yesterday.
The DEC’s Tsunami Earthquake Appeal today began accepting
online credit and debit card donations, following the appeal’s launch yesterday 
when it offered a telephone donations service.

 

 

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The Tsunami Earthquake Appeal is featured on the DEC’s front page, although the 
site remains dominated by information about the current Sudan emergency appeal. “
More Information Will Be Posted Shortly – Please Come Back Soon” reads the notice
published today underneath the link to the online donation facility. Donations are
encouraged by credit, debit and CAF Charity Card.

 

 

The appeal consists simply of the following, in capitals, and with no photo or illustration:

 

 

“DEC TSUNAMI EARTHQUAKE APPEAL

 

 

YOU CAN HELP – EVERY PENNY COUNTS

 

 

DONATE HERE:”

 

 

The online credit/debit card donation facility, handled by securetrading.net, was
unavailable, unfortunately, when UK Fundraising tried to access it from 23.22 – 
23.25. It is to be hoped that this was due to a high demand for its facility from
donors. When the page was finally accessed it loaded very slowly indeed, taking 
over one minute to load completely.

 

 

A subsequent update to the page explained that the reason was indeed heavy traffic:“
Due to high volume of traffic on our website you may experience difficulty making
a donation online if this is the case, you can make a credit card donation by telephone
on 0870 60 60 900 or please please try later, we need your money.” The ability to
handle many near simultaneous donations over a very short period is a key requirement
of online emergency appeals, but it seems the DEC site doesn’t yet have this functionality.

 

 * **[More sites catch up by offering online donations to Asian floods appeal](https://fundraising.co.uk/2004/12/29/more-sites-catch-offering-online-donations-asian-floods-appeal/)**(
   29 December 2004)
 * **[Oxfam Hong Kong reports fraudulent tsunami appeal emails](https://fundraising.co.uk/2005/01/04/oxfam-hong-kong-reports-fraudulent-tsunami-appeal-emails/)**(
   4 January 2005)
 * **[Indian children's charity uses email for Tsunami disaster appeal](https://fundraising.co.uk/2005/01/04/indian-children039s-charity-uses-email-tsunami-disaster-appeal/)**(
   4 January 2005)