While I commend anyone who wants to just give freely to help the people in Haiti, there are actually some interesting philanthropic opportunities going on right now that can be a win for you as well!
There are several businesses, bands, and organizations pledging to donate portions of their income, or 100% for a limited time from all the merchandise, product, or service they can sell within a window of time.
This might sound mercenary at first, but if you can ensure that 100% of the profit is going straight to the cause you support, I say why not derive some benefit from your timely generosity? At the end of the day, you can either give $50, or you can re-route $50, get something awesome, avoid the headache of getting the money to the cause, and help promote the work of an artist or developer at the same time. It’s a win-win-win-win!
I want everyone reading this to visit http://www.indierelief.com/ tomorrow (Jan. 20th). 100% of the money made from all the software titles listed will go to support one of a few charities doing amazing work in Haiti right now. There’s been an incredible response to the disaster from within the developer community, and it’s really amazing to watch our demographic respond in such a generous way.
To help you choose a title, and to plug some of my favorite developers, I wanted to tell you which titles (out of the many) I personally use (or have used) and recommend:
Acorn, Delicious Library 2, Instapaper Pro, Things, Tweetie, Twittelator Pro, & Twitterriffic.
I’ve also heard good things about RowMote and Flow.
If you’re not already using Tweetie, please do yourself a favor and use this time to buy this gorgeous, useful, and clean iPhone app.
Go visit indierelief.com, get yourself some awesome software, and help heal Haiti in their time of need. Remember, tomorrow (the 20th) only!
