State Department officials, following the United Nations' lead, now are accepting donations via text message to help support recovery and reconstruction in Pakistan where floods have displaced about 20 million people and spread deadly waterborne diseases.
Punching the word "FLOOD" to 27722 will automatically donate $10 to the U.S. government's new Pakistan relief fund.
Earlier in the month, the UN Refugee Agency partnered with mGive, a mobile donations provider, to allow Americans to make $10 mobile contributions by texting "SWAT" to 50555. State began promoting the effort on Aug. 2 and then created its own mobile-enabled charity late last week.
mGive processed more than $37 million for Haiti during three weeks earlier this year, after the State Department requested help in aiding the earthquake-devastated country.
Aliya Sternstein
Aliya Sternstein reports on cybersecurity and homeland security systems for Nextgov. She has covered technology for nine years at such publications as National Journal's TechnologyDaily, Federal Computer Week and Forbes. Before joining Government Executive, she covered agriculture and derivatives trading for Congressional Quarterly. She has been a guest commentator on C-SPAN, WTOP and Federal News Radio. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
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