More than $675-million has been raised so far — an outpouring that is unprecented and has raised new concerns about how best to ensure the money is used as effectively as possible. At least 30 organizations are raising money for relief, including established charities like the Red Cross and Salvation Army, and new funds like the Lumina Fund for Education, which is trying to raise money to finance college tuition for young people who lost parents in the attacks, and the Fund for World Trade Center Greenmarket Farmers, which hopes to help farmers who lost displays, trucks, and much more when the buildings collapsed.

After watching the proliferation of fund-raising efforts and the creation of new organizations to collect money in the wake of the attacks, the New York attorney general’s office, which oversees charities in the state, decided last week to take action. It will help coordinate the efforts of charities and government agencies providing support to victims of the disaster and their families by holding a series of meetings and setting up a database to allow the groups to share information. The intent, said Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, is to avoid duplication and to ensure that “every dollar goes to those most in need.”

The scale of giving to the funds created after the September 11 disaster contrasts sharply with the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, which generated around $21-million in the year following that attack. But the number of people who died in that event — 168 — is but a small fraction of the approximately 7,000 deaths at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and on board the four planes involved in the assaults. And the number of family members whose lives were devastated is that much greater.

Leaders of the new charity funds face many tough calls. Who are the most worthy recipients of the money, and how can that be determined? How can they ensure that the needs of minority families won’t be overshadowed by the needs of others who lost relatives in the attacks? How can the funds best complement each other, without duplicating efforts? How should money be disbursed? Who is going to manage the effort? How can one be sure the money is going to those who truly need it, rather than to scam artists who hope to make a profit from the tragedy of others?

Said Ani Hurwitz, a spokeswoman for the New York Community Trust: “You run the fine line between really responding quickly, and making sure that the money is going to the right place.”

Private foundations, which have so far contributed more than $80-million, are also examining how they can best spend their dollars. Among the considerations: Does the terrorist attack point to the need for new grant-making programs? How can their expertise with grant making help the managers of the new funds, some of whom are inexperienced? How can they maintain existing grant programs while also making disaster-relief grants large enough to make a difference?

The Carnegie Corporation of New York — a foundation that typically focuses on strengthening education and democracy — has promised $10-million to help nonprofit groups respond to the attacks. “We had to acknowledge the obvious facts: We are New Yorkers, we are in New York, we are part of the American fabric, and we have to do something for the city consistent with our mission,” said Vartan Gregorian, Carnegie’s president. “We follow Andrew Carnegie’s notion that self-help begins at home, so we should not wait for outsiders to help us.”

The Ford Foundation, which pledged $10-million in the wake of the attacks, announced last week that it was lending three program associates and a grants administrator to help run the September 11th Fund, a creation of the New York Community Trust and the United Way of New York City.

Leaders at Carnegie, Ford, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the New York Community Trust, and other grant-making organizations are talking regularly to come up with a coordinated response. And some of them are talking privately about stepping up support for efforts to better understand Muslims, and to deal with ethnic and religious prejudice.

In Seattle, Casey Family Programs, a nonprofit group that provides foster care, adoption, and other social services to children and families, has arranged for a group of 16 foundations, individual philanthropists, and corporations to talk about how grant makers and others can help over the long term. Among the participants: the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the wealthiest fund in the United States.

Working With Government

The new funds are talking with city-, state-, and federal-government leaders, particularly those at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to be sure they are providing services that are needed.

Last week, the new funds started announcing grant programs.

The American Red Cross, for example, which had raised more than $211-million as of last week for its new Liberty Disaster Relief Fund, said it has set aside $100-million to meet the immediate needs of families who lost someone in the attacks. Families can apply for assistance with their mortgage, rent, grocery, and other bills at one of the family-service centers the group established in New York, Northern Virginia, and western Pennsylvania.

And the September 11th Fund, which had raised $120-million by last week, made its first grant and released guidelines for proposals for other grants for short-term emergency help.

The $700,000 grant, which will be replenished as it is used up, was made to Safe Horizon, a New York group that helps crime victims and that itself had to find temporary quarters because of damage to its office building near the World Trade Center. The organization will disburse cash to victims and their families for rent, mortgage, food, utility bills, and burials, among other costs.

Among the recipients, said Safe Horizon’s chief executive officer, Gordon J. Campbell, was a woman who worked in one of the towers and lived in a nearby apartment. “She had no money, no credit cards, and only some donated clothes,” he said. “She will ultimately be helped by FEMA for housing, and by the state, but she had an immediate need.”

Nonprofit community groups, religious organizations, and for-profit companies engaged in charitable work will be eligible for the September 11th Fund’s emergency grant program, so long as they are serving people who were affected by the attacks, whether someone who lost a spouse or someone who worked in the vicinity of the World Trade Center and lost a job. Organizations that dispense money to charities that provide direct services to such people are also eligible, as are nonprofit groups whose own operations were hurt directly or indirectly as a result of the attacks.

Ms. Hurwitz of the New York Community Trust said the emergency grants would require only a short proposal and would not go through the usual four-month approval cycle, in part because board approval is not necessary.

Long-Term Needs

Many of the new funds are concerned with meeting immediate needs, but Nancy B. Anthony, executive director of the Oklahoma City Community Foundation, cautions that victims and their families will have needs well into the future. She is sharing that message with nonprofit groups who are calling upon her for help with the current crisis given her experience aiding people hurt by the 1995 bombing. “We still have about 70 or 80 active cases, six years later,” she said. “It’s not something that’s going to be over in six months.”

The Twin Towers Orphan Fund, which has raised $47,000, was set up with such concerns in mind. “This is a long-term benefit program,” said W. Knox Richardson, a public-relations professional who started the Bakersfield, Calif., fund as a volunteer effort along with some of his colleagues around the country. “We are not looking to provide clothing or food. We are looking to provide trust funds for college education, for long-term health insurance, for mental and physical health-care counseling,” and other needs “that will surface as we go forward.”

Some of the other funds, including the September 11th Fund, will take up long-term concerns after they have some emergency relief in place.

Figuring out who should get the money will be one of the toughest decisions the new funds face. In Oklahoma City, within two weeks of the bombing, charity officials created a computer system with the help of high-technology companies. Every time a charity identified someone in need or gave help, it entered the details into the Community Network Database.

It’s unclear exactly how such a database will work in New York, where there are so many more victims and so many more groups offering money and assistance. Among the complications this time, says Ms. Anthony of the Oklahoma City Community Foundation, is how hard it has been to officially identify those who died in the World Trade Center attacks.

“The group of people affected is so spread out — I don’t even know how they could get a decent list together,” she said. “There are going to be people who are going to be claimed missing in New York that they’re never going to know if they were in there because they don’t have any bodies to identify.”

Concern About Prejudice

Some nonprofit officals are worried that people’s prejudices could dictate who gets help and who does not. The Black United Fund of New York, which provides nonprofit groups with financial help and management advice, set up a Victim Relief Fund to be sure that minority-group members get the same level of assistance as whites.

“Many of us in the black community, while we are terrified and we hurt because of what happened to all people, are still concerned that at the end of the day black people will still be left out,” said Kermit J. Eady, the group’s president. More often among blacks than whites, he says, grandmothers and aunts and other extended-family members will likely be caring for the victims’ children, rather than a single parent. “We depend on the extended family a lot more, I think, and we want to make sure that these people can get help.”

Still, his fund had raised only $800 as of last week, mostly from one radio station. “Not one white radio station or television station has picked up any of our work,” said Mr. Eady.

At the AmeriCares Foundation, a New Canaan, Conn., relief group, officials are busy trying to identify the neediest individuals, like temporary workers who died in the World Trade Center and left no health and life insurance for their families, said Andrew L. Hannah, the group’s vice chairman. Staff members at the group have been dispatched to ferret out such cases, he said, and they will confirm what they find with city officials. To handle the case load, the group may add social-service personnel, he said.

Workers may also be added to assist the September 11th Fund, said Ms. Hurwitz, and other groups are talking about making hires to help them handle the enormous number of people who will surely be requesting aid.

Many of the groups that have set up the new funds have said that administrative expenses will not come out of donations. Understanding that, the Denver Foundation gave the September 11th Fund a two-year grant of $50,000 to cover such costs. “They understand from Columbine [where two students killed 12 of their peers and one teacher in 1999] how staff-intensive this whole thing is,” said Ms. Hurwitz.