NEW YORK —   The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s Next Gen initiative had been looking into launching a mobile giving campaign. When the earthquake devastated Haiti last month, suddenly the race was on to get it up and running.

The entire setup process took less than 48 hours, and JDC announced its text-to-donate campaign at “Help Haiti Now,” an emergency benefit held Jan. 19 at a popular music venue. In addition to the minimum $36 donation, attendees were asked to text “JDCHAITI” to 85944, which would result in a $10 donation added to their cell phone bills.

The event raised $8,200, and up to $3,600 raised through texting will be matched dollar for dollar by the owners of the Havana Central restaurant chain.

Among Jewish organizations, the American Jewish World Service and the JDC are among the first to try mobile giving campaigns. The UJA-Federation of New York has launched the Chai Society, which enables recent college graduates to donate $18 a month to the UJA by texting the word “Chai” to 58126.

But in wider U.S. nonprofit circles, mobile phone giving is reaching a tipping point, says Lucy Bernholz, a longtime adviser to philanthropic foundations and a well-respected blogger and analyst of philanthropic trends.

The question is how successful these campaigns are and whether other Jewish organizations will jump on the bandwagon.

Industry analysts say that mobile giving is growing at a far quicker pace than online giving. In 2008, when mobile giving first got off the ground, $500,000 was donated via text messages. Last year the number increased to $3 million.

But last month, in the wake of the Haiti earthquake, the Red Cross alone raised more than $30 million via $10 text message donations. The organization had raised $200,000 through mobile giving during the 2008 hurricane season.

“The tragedy in Haiti has raised the awareness among the general population of the ability to make a donation very quickly through a mobile phone,” says Douglas Plank, CEO of MobileCause, which is among about nine service providers in the United States that are approved by the Mobile Giving Foundation.

Only 500 of the more than 1 million U.S. nonprofits are running text-to-donate campaigns, but Plank envisions a large increase in the coming year.