Many of you have undoubtedly been watching the unfortunate events unfold in Japan post-earthquake.  Many of the Cloudscaling team are sympathetic, both because many of us live here in earthquake-prone SF Bay Area and also because some of us were here during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.  Frankly, we’re also extremely blessed to have done as well as we have over the past year as a business, growing 10x in less than 12 months.  It’s time to give back.

We decided to support the Japanese relief efforts directly and did some basic due diligence.  Our charity of choice to support was the Japanese Red Cross.  The JRC is not an officially sanctioned charitable organization by U.S. law, so if a tax deduction is important to you, this is not the right selection.  We picked the JRC because we believe our dollars will be put to work faster and in a more targeted manner than if they have to be channeled through a U.S. organization.

If you would like to donate to the JRC you can do so at the JRC earthquake relief website.  If that doesn’t work there is a list of other related organizations at Charity Navigator.

Best wishes to the Japanese people and the relief workers.