An Unprecedented Show of Support

Driven by Internet donations, charities large and small raise record amounts for tsunami victims

The $406-million that has been donated to charities helping the tsunami victims has shattered fund-raising records for

international disasters. While the money is making it easier to run the early stages of the recovery effort, charity officials say the real challenge is just ahead, as news of the tsunamis and relief efforts moves off the front page.

“All of us should be raising a lot of money now,” says Matthew De Galan, chief development officer at Mercy Corps, in Portland, Ore. “If you’re not, then you’re not awake. But the real skill will be in who retains the best, who is able to reach out and keep the highest percentage of the donors.”

Fund raisers at relief groups say that, as they seek the funds that will be needed to help survivors rebuild homes, schools, and businesses, they hope to capitalize on the stunning success of the Internet in attracting gifts. In addition, charities are planning to step up efforts to show donors how much their money has accomplished.

New Records

Relief organizations have been astounded not just by the amount of money they have raised, but also by the speed at which it has come in.

The American Red Cross has raised more than $173-million for its relief efforts in South Asia. Before this disaster, the most it had ever raised for an international emergency was $51-million for Hurricane Mitch, which battered several Central American countries in 1998.

Other organizations have also broken past records for international disasters:

• CARE USA, in Atlanta, has received $19-million, more than doubling the $8.3-million it raised over four and a half months in 1999 for the Kosovo refugee crisis.
• The $15-million that Mercy Corps, in Portland, Ore., has raised is more than four times the $3.3-million it collected for the Kosovo refugee crisis — and is more than the $10.5-million it received in its entire 2004 fiscal year.
• Lutheran World Relief, in Baltimore, raised $2.1-million for the Ethiopian famine in 1984 and 1985, but has already collected $5.2-million for its efforts in South Asia.

Catholic Relief Services, in Baltimore, raised $50-million for the Ethiopian famine over two years, which remains the most the organization has raised for a disaster overseas. But the more than $26-million the charity’s Tsunami Emergency Relief Fund has collected is already approaching the $29-million the organization received for Hurricane Mitch and the $31.4-million it received for the Kosovo refugee crisis.

For relief organizations large and small, the Internet has played a crucial role in raising money to assist survivors in South Asia.

Of the $173-million that the American Red Cross has raised, $73-million has come in through the organization’s Web site, and companies that are raising money for the charity on their own Web sites, such as Amazon.com and Yahoo, have collected more than $20-million in additional online donations. In the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the American Red Cross received electronic gifts totaling $65.9-million.

Before the tragedy in South Asia, Catholic Relief Services had never raised more than $900,000 online a year, but nearly $12-million of the $26-million the charity has raised for tsunami relief has come in through the Internet.

For many years, relief organizations relied on direct mail to raise money after a natural disaster, and then the telephone, but no more, says Fiona K. Hodgson, vice president for leadership giving and public affairs at Save the Children, in Westport, Conn. “This clearly was the event that tipped the fulcrum, so that the Internet is now the key way to give,” she says.

Save the Children has raised more than $30-million for relief efforts. Gifts made over the telephone have accounted for only $1.4-million of that total, even as employees, members of their families, and volunteers staffed the charity’s phone lines nearly 24 hours a day. Online donations, however, have added up to more than $9-million.

When the tsunamis struck, donors could make gifts of only $1,000 or less on Save the Children’s Web site. Right away the charity received so many online contributions of $1,000 that the day after the disaster, it negotiated with its bank to raise the limit to $5,000. Three days later, the organization had to raise it again to $10,000, and then to $25,000. The charity has received so many donations of that size that it is negotiating with its bank to raise the limit to $50,000.

In addition to giving money for relief efforts, Internet donors also have contributed more than $1.3-million in unrestricted gifts since the start of the emergency. Save the Children’s goal for unrestricted online gifts was $300,000 for all of 2005.

So, two weeks after the disaster, the organization added a line to the donation page on its Web site asking that donors add an unrestricted gift of $5 to their tsunami relief contribution, a request that it also incorporated into its telephone scripts.

CARE has raised a little more than a third of the $19-million it has collected for relief efforts over the Internet — and found itself the beneficiary of what may be the next generation of online fund raising.

Verizon Wireless customers can use their phones to make a $5 contribution to CARE’s relief efforts by sending a text message to the address 4CARE. Customers can make up to five gifts, and the contributions will appear on their next monthly bill.

Benefits of the Web

The Internet also has proved to be a potent fund-raising tool for smaller organizations — and a way to help donors find them.

Direct Relief International, in Santa Barbara, Calif., which has raised more than $4-million, has received more than 12,000 online donations. Last year the organization received about 3,500 gifts, with only 600 to 700 coming in online.

Thomas Tighe, the organization’s chief executive officer, readily acknowledges that his organization doesn’t have the brand name of a Red Cross or a Unicef. For almost 60 years, he says, Direct Relief International’s work has been supported by a small, dedicated group of donors. But the Internet has allowed thousands of people hoping to help survivors of the tragedy in South Asia find his organization.

“It hasn’t been the result of a sophisticated marketing or outreach plan,” says Mr. Tighe. “It’s been completely organic, and totally unexpected.”

Network for Good, a San Francisco charity whose online giving site allows donors to contribute to any charity in the United States, has processed $10-million in donations to 40 organizations providing relief after the earthquake and tsunamis in South Asia.

The organization has seen a wider distribution of gifts after this disaster than in previous emergencies, says Bill Strathmann, Network for Good’s chief executive officer. One third of the money raised through the system is going to the Red Cross, but a dozen other relief organizations have raised more than $100,000 each.

“We were surprised,” says Mr. Strathmann. “We’ve done this kind of thing before on a much smaller scale with hurricane relief, and we saw a higher percentage of the dollars going to fewer, larger organizations.”

Mercy Corps has received more gifts from corporations than it had after previous disasters, and a number of the company officials that have contacted the group for the first time said that they found out about Mercy Corps as they searched the Web, says Mr. De Galan, the organization’s chief development officer.

Lessons of September 11

Issues of accountability and the lessons of September 11 are very much on the minds of relief organizations as they raise money for their response to the disaster. After the terrorist attacks, charities were criticized for not being clear about what they planned to do with the money they raised.

A week after the disaster, the American branch of Doctors Without Borders took the unusual step of announcing that the organization had raised as much money as it could use for its operations in South Asia.

Earlier in the week, the organization had posted a notice on the donation page of its Web site asking donors to give the organization permission to use their gifts for other emergencies in the event that the group had already raised enough money for its operations in South Asia.

“We wanted to be very clear with people that we always honor people’s intents on their donations,” says Kris Torgeson, the organization’s communications director. “We wanted to be sure we didn’t accept more money than we could use on our field projects.”

Several fund raisers at other relief organizations said they understood and respected the nonprofit group’s move, particularly in light of the organization’s emergency focus.

While some fund raisers said they had been worried that donors might think all international groups — even those with longer-term missions — had enough money for their work, none reported a drop in donations in response to the announcement.

But even if donors were confused, says Nancy A. Aossey, chief executive officer of International Medical Corps, in Santa Monica, Calif., that was not the fault of Doctors Without Borders.

“It’s incumbent on other organizations to get the message out that we’re there for the long term, that we’re there to help rebuild, that we’re going to be there past the emergency phase, and we don’t have enough money for those efforts,” says Ms. Aossey.

Informing Contributors

Other charities sought to reassure donors by posting extensive information on their Web sites about their activities and the expenses they were incurring.

In addition to providing detailed information about the medical supplies the organization was shipping to the affected region, Direct Relief International also posted a detailed statement about how it would use contributions designated for tsunami relief. The organization explained to donors that the funds would be deposited in a separate bank account and would be used only for new expenses.

For example, says Mr. Tighe, the nonprofit organization’s chief executive officer, Direct Relief’s vice president of programs and a program officer went to Sri Lanka to oversee the distribution of the supplies.

During the time they spend working on this disaster, their salaries will not be paid by relief funds, because their pay is not a new expense, but the cost of their airplane tickets and the expenses they incur in Sri Lanka will be covered.

Mr. Tighe says the organization is not trying to make a statement about other charities’ practices, but instead honor the wishes of its donors.

“People around this country are sacrificing a lot out of their own pockets,” he explains, “and our organization is going to sacrifice too.”

Mr. Tighe says that donors have appreciated the clarity of the organization’s statement, and that many people have divided their contribution between general support and Direct Relief’s tsunami relief fund.

Eugene R. Tempel, executive director of the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, in Indianapolis, worries, however, that disaster donors’ reluctance to pay for the expenses involved in administering aid just shifts that burden elsewhere. “If we expect our money to go 100 percent to help a victim somewhere, somebody else has to pay for the infrastructure that gets that money there,” says Mr. Tempel.

As the pace of contributions has begun to slow, fund raisers are turning their attention to the question of how to encourage the hundreds or, in many cases, thousands of donors who contributed to their organizations for the first time to become continuing supporters.

The first step, says Mr. De Galan, of Mercy Corps, is thanking donors for their gifts and letting them know how their money is being used. Mercy Corps has started by sending a thank-you e-mail to donors who have made online gifts.

The message includes information about the amount of food the organization has delivered to Sumatra and coastal India.

Keeping donors apprised of relief and rebuilding efforts will also be the central focus of Lutheran World Relief’s plan to try to retain new contributors.

Three years after Hurricane Mitch, Lutheran World Relief sent donors a short booklet that used photographs and first-person accounts to show how the organization’s long-term projects were helping people in hard-hit regions recover. The organization expects to create similar reports on its work in South Asia.

Lutheran World Relief might also start a free-standing Web site to report on its work in tsunami-ravaged areas and to follow over time the stories of individuals who have benefited from the charity’s projects.

Communicating with donors about the aftermath of the disaster — and, it hopes, prompting additional gifts — will be something Lutheran World Relief will be working on for a long time, says Lisa Bonds, the organization’s vice president for external relations.

Says Ms. Bonds: “We’re going to be running something in our newsletter for the next 10 years.”