Donations to Help Hurricane Victims Taper Off at Some Charities

After the initial outpouring of giving to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, donations to some of the nation’s largest relief charities have slowed substantially, even as the Gulf Coast recovers from its second major hurricane, Rita, which caused a wide swath of damage along the Texas and Louisiana coasts.

At the same time, however, housing charities and other groups involved in longer-term aid say donations are still coming in at a rapid clip, as donors and the news media shift their attention to recovery.

More than $1.7-billion has been raised to date, an increase of about $500-million over the previous two weeks. And even though gifts are slowing down for some charities, the overall response is record-setting: It took more than a month for nonprofit groups to raise $1-billion after September 11. More than $2.2-billion was eventually raised in response to the terrorist attacks.

The trends in giving are of concern for many relief groups, which say the scale of destruction from the Gulf Coast hurricanes is so huge that aid typically provided only during the first few days after a disaster, such as temporary shelters and meals, is still needed more than a month after the first storm.

“We have 80,000 people in shelters and a lot of family-assistance work still to do, a lot of mental-health work to do,” said Marsha J. Evans, president of the American Red Cross.

But as of last week, the pace of donations had fallen to tens of millions of dollars per day, down from hundreds of millions of dollars per day that the charity had collected in the immediate aftermath of Katrina.

The Red Cross has raised only about $1.1-billion of its $2-billion goal, she said. Ms. Evans said another $500-million is “in the pipeline” from sources such as customer-donation programs at supermarkets and other stores and matches of employee gifts by companies.

Much more will be needed in coming weeks, says Ms. Evans. By last week the Red Cross said it had spent $1.26-billion on Katrina relief, including $603-million in direct financial payments to 608,000 families. “We need to redouble our efforts to tell the story to help donors appreciate what it’s going to take,” she said.

At the Salvation Army, Katrina appeals have raised $224-million to date, but its Rita effort has brought in only $100,000, according to Maj. George Hood, a spokesman for the national organization.

“Everyone expected this to be a rerun of what we went through with Katrina,” he said. “When it wasn’t, everybody breathed a sigh a relief and went back to business as usual. Yet there’s been such devastation along coastal areas from Rita; these little fishing villages and country towns have just been destroyed.”

One reason for the slower pace may be donor fatigue, Mr. Hood says, but another may be hesitation as donors wait to see how much the federal government plans to do for survivors. The recent news that the Federal Emergency Management Agency plans to reimburse the Red Cross and certain other charities for relief efforts has helped create uncertainty about how much private donors should do, he said.

Church Collections

Meanwhile, other religious organizations and those that help with recovery work say giving has remained strong.

The United Methodist Committee on Relief, in New York, saw its hurricane fund more than triple in the two-week period ending October 5, from $3.6-million to $11-million.

The disaster-relief fund for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America nearly doubled, from $6.8-million to $11-million, over the same period. “I don’t expect we’ll see a lag for another couple of weeks,” said Kathryn Sime, director of world hunger and disaster appeals for the organization, based in Chicago.

Gifts collected at Lutheran church services are just now reaching the organization, Ms. Sime said. “Our congregations understand our goal,” she said. “I have no doubt we’ll have all the funds we need to sufficiently fund our long-term response plan.”

At Catholic Charites USA, in Alexandria, Va., which also focuses on long-term recovery efforts, donations are over $46-million, a number that has doubled in recent weeks. That’s partly due to the fact that more large donations are coming in now, said John M. Keightley, a senior vice president. Donors who give big gifts often spend more time considering their gifts before making them, he said.

Some groups say they are concerned that donors’ gifts for hurricane relief and recovery will replace the usual gifts they make to an organization.

Mark L. Crozet, senior vice president of resource development at Habitat for Humanity International, in Americus, Ga., says the group has raised $21-million for the hurricanes, but the organization’s 1,900 affiliates across the United States also need support.

The charity is emphasizing to donors that hurricane victims are now scattered across the country, and needs are greater in local communities everywhere, as well as along the Gulf Coast.

Brennen Jensen contributed to this article.