Just after the disaster in Japan, Maureen Johnson, a popular young adult author, and her Twitter followers mobilized to raise money to help. They picked ShelterBox as a charity and began working. Using the tag #nameoftheshelterbox, a play on Johnson's upcoming book, The Name of the Star, twitterers posted about donating to help Japan. Others retweeted, Facebooked and emailed their friends to spread the word.
Donors were asked to tweet their donation amount so a volunteer "Spreadsheet Elf" could keep track of the totals. Additionally, Johnson offered her only advanced copy of her new book as a prize to a random donor.
As the day went on, over 21 other authors offered prizes. Johnson's original blog post detailed the contest instructions and prizes as they were announced.
When all the donations were tallied and the contest results posted, the entire effort had brought in over $14,000 for ShelterBox.
So, when people wonder what Twitter is good for, this is an excellent example of its ability to be used for charitable purposes.
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