In the wake of the devastating 2010 Haiti earthquake, the world community mobilized to lend a helping hand in any way it could, especially in aid relief donations. Social media has played no small role in disseminating the message and helping raise funds.

In just over 56-hours since the quake struck, the Red Cross has raised over $10 million in $10 donations from Americans by texting “Haiti” to 90999. It’s a staggering amount of money in such a short time period. In fact, it doubles the amount of money raised by charitable text message campaigns for the entire year of 2009. And there’s no sign donations are slowing down either.

None of it would be possible without social media. Word of the campaign spread over Twitter and Facebook like a firestorm. Friends updated their status reports letting others know they donated, and showing them how to as well.

So why now? What is it about this crisis that allowed the Red Cross to amass such a huge amount of donations so quickly?

It comes down to a collaboration of both new and traditional media; a merger of TV and print, social media and technology.

The first step in the chain is the ability to text message a donation without using a check book, credit card or other form of payment. The technology, provided by mGive in cooperation with mobile phone carriers, has never made it easier to donate. A major problem with past methods of donating, is that a message for help has lost its impact by the time a person is in a position to give. With the use of this text message donation system, donations can be collected instantly while the donor is emotionally impacted.

That emotional impact is delivered by non-stop coverage from the news media. With photos and video of the tragedy, on the scene reports and accurate journalism, we all learned about the disaster that struck Haiti. Traditional news media still has a critical role to play in this whole process, especially in affirming the accuracy of reports and access to hard to reach locations.

That message, and nearly the entirety of the donation campaign, was then spread through social media like Facebook and Twitter. It was social media that provided the person-to-person networking that empowered donations. Traditional media only picked up on the text donations after they had accumulated over $800,000.

This powerful combination of traditional media, social media and technology provided the means for individuals around the U.S. and world to react instantly. It’s something we’ll see again, and it will the job of companies and organizations to figure out how to use it again in the future.

Make no mistake, social media entered the world of charitable activism in a big way during the Haiti crises. We look forward to seeing how it is able to help others in need.