# Yahoo.com raises $876,850 online for American Red Cross appeal

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2004/12/31/yahoocom-raises-876850-online-american-red-cross-appeal/
- Published: 2004-12-31T00:00:00+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

Yahoo.com has begun handling online donations to the American Red Cross and is already
nearing its first $1 million.
By 14.00 today, 9,385 donations totalling $876,850
had been made online. The average value of gifts therefore is an impressively high
$93.43.

The Yahoo! page presents visitors with a range of different buttons featuring different
donation amounts. Donors can choose to give $10, $25, $50, $100, $250, $500, $1,000,
$2,500, or $5,000. Those wishing to make gifts of different amounts are encouraged
to telephone the American Red Cross and make a donation directly.

The choice of $5,000 as the maximum option seems odd as it is a comparatively low
figure, given the reports of many people’s generosity to various of the current 
emergency appeals. Average online gifts are also almost always higher than average
offline gifts. It will be interesting to see if a higher maximum is added to this
page.

## Advertisement

The donation facility is being promoted on the front page of Yahoo.com together 
with links to the Web sites of UNICEF, AmeriCares, Oxfam America, and Network for
Good. The promotion appears in a very prominent position towards the top of the 
page, directly under the search box.

There is no similar promotion on the pages of Yahoo! UK & Ireland.

Yahoo says that “the American Red Cross pays nothing to Yahoo! for operating this
Web site. One-hundred percent of your donation is collected by the American Red 
Cross.” It offered a similar online donation tool to the American Red Cross in the
weeks following the terrorist attacks in the USA of 11 September 2001.

 * **[Amazon.co.uk promotes online donations to British Red Cross](https://fundraising.co.uk/2005/01/03/amazoncouk-promotes-online-donations-british-red-cross/)**(
   3 January 2005)
 * **[SCF's Tsunami appeal raises £400,000 online in one week](https://fundraising.co.uk/2005/01/03/scf039s-tsunami-appeal-raises-400000-online-one-week/)**(
   3 January 2005)
 * **[Successes for US non-profits in online fundraising for tsunami appeal](https://fundraising.co.uk/2005/01/05/successes-us-nonprofits-online-fundraising-tsunami-appeal/)**(
   5 January 2005)