Fanlore:Featured Article Archives/2019: Week 6

Help Haiti was a Livejournal-based multifandom charity auction organized to raise funds for disaster relief efforts in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.

Livejournal user heidi8 created the Help Haiti account on January 13, 2010, after a massive earthquake had struck Haiti the day prior. In their first post, Heidi8 created a five-question poll to solicit public dialogue on the auction structure and to identify interest from potential participants. Notably, most respondents indicated that they had no preference on the timeline of the auction.

While there were a total of one hundred and forty-five respondents to the poll, only twenty-six people responded to the question about how they themselves might participate in the auction; possible responses to this question included "donate fanfic/art/vid/graphics" and "pimp the auction." Respondents were split on how the recipient charities should be selected, with equal numbers in favor of identifying a set list of organizations or allowing the winning bidder to select any organization they wished.