Relay in Second Life, Efforts for the Second Lives

Relay in Second Life, Efforts for the Second Lives

Immediately after the news of the striking and horrific Haiti earthquake was released throughout the Internet, many people started to act, among whom were the avatars in Second Life who quickly take the “relay for life”. They set out to launch propaganda posters in Second Life, advocate to the entire virtual world, and raise fund to help to save the lives in Haiti.
We are all familiar with the fund-raising programs in reality, from advocating, launching, to finally sending to money to those we want to help, all of which will take much time due to the difficulty of practical work. Now, as the above example has shown, Second Life-the representative of the ever-growing virtual world-has taken the initiative in raising money in much faster and appealing ways.
Posters like this “Open Forum: Are There Any Second Life Fundraisers for the Victims of the Haiti Earthquake?” could be seen throughout the Internet. Through this way, various fund-raising organizations or individual fundraisers in Second Life are rallied together to start to donate money for the victims. “I'm starting to put together a two-day Music and Arts festival to benefit Haiti Earthquake victims. Planning funds to go to the American Red Cross for distribution to Haiti. Dates still to be determined.” A resident in Second Life responded to the advocating. “Hay everybody! I've decided to donate all the money I make from selling my hats at The Funky Chapeau for the next 2 weeks to help the disaster recovery!” Another resident responded in such a delighting and sincere way.
The “money” that is donated in Second Life is different from that in reality. The avatars don’t need to handle any real money; instead, they only need to donate the Linden dollars, the money they use in Second Life, to the pointed site, like the Red Cross Donation Site. Later the Linden dollars are converted to cash in reality by certain groups, saving the avatars many troubles.
However, there are doubts about this kind of fund-raising activities in Second Life because of the invisibility of the money-distributing process, as one resident responds “I pay attention to how much goes to admin costs and how much actually gets distributed to recipients”.
Many other fund-raising activities are organized and carried out for different kinds of purposes except natural disasters, furthermore, they serve as platforms for the charity organizations in reality, like the American Cancer Society and WWF (World Wildlife Fund), to raise more fund and help more people.

References:
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2010/01/open-forum.html
http://givinginadigitalworld.org/category/second-life/
Sources of pictures:
http://www.secondlifeupdate.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/RelayForLife2009SecondLife.jpg
http://www.ictknowledgebase.org.uk/fileadmin/ICT/images/second_life/second_life_lge/relaystationl.jpg
http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/second-life-11.jpg