$23-Million Raised by Charities Helping Victims of California’s Wildfires

Donors have pledged more than $23-million to help charities respond to the wildfires in Southern California, which burned 500,000 acres, destroyed 1,600 homes, and killed seven people.

The American Red Cross received the vast majority of that money, an estimated $15.7-million for wildfire relief. In addition, the charity said the emergency prompted people to give $4.3-million to the organization’s general disaster fund. By October 29, the organization had stopped accepting contributions to the relief effort, its largest since Hurricane Katrina, since by then it had collected the $15-million or so it needed to pay for wildfire relief.

Other charities received far smaller sums. The Salvation Army brought in commitments of about $1.5-million, followed by Direct Relief International, $490,000; Save the Children, $250,000; and Operation USA, $3,000.

“There’s been a real outpouring of generosity, in part because of the very dramatic nature of the fires,” said Mark W. Everson, president of the Red Cross. “When these homes were destroyed, they weren’t partially damaged. They went to the ground and there’s nothing left.”

Mr. Everson said his charity might give other organizations some of the cash it raised if there is money left over when it finishes dealing with immediate needs.

Richard Walden, president of Operation USA, said that smaller relief groups like his were having a difficult time raising money, in part because most California newspapers listed only the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and several pet-rescue groups as suggested places to donate. “There’s been a huge imbalance in terms of funds,” he said.

As of last week, the Red Cross was still operating a few shelters, providing mental-health counseling, and cleaning up communities devastated by the fires.

Direct Relief International was funneling support to hospitals and clinics, while the Salvation Army was providing financial assistance to people who lost their homes, among other support.

Local Groups

While the Red Cross did receive most of the big gifts announced right after the fires, many businesses planned to donate additional cash to local charities in the coming weeks.

The Walt Disney Company, for example, gave $200,000 to the Red Cross but planned to donate another $1.8-million in the coming weeks. Bank of America planned to give $1-million — half to the Washington charity and half to community organizations.

“The Red Cross seems best equipped to respond immediately, but we’re concerned about what happens in two weeks or two months,” said Janet Lamkin, president of Bank of America’s California region. “We want to make sure our local partners that we work with on a day-to-day basis have sufficient funds.”

Community foundations were also playing a role in helping to raise money for longer-term needs. The San Diego Foundation received $3.5-million for its After-the-Fires Fund, and expects to bring in another $2-million.

Much of its foundation support came as a result of an e-mail message sent out by the Council on Foundations, which also caught the attention of former President Bill Clinton. He held a fund-raising event to benefit the San Diego Foundation on November 3 that brought in an estimated $300,000.

The San Diego grant maker also benefited from its experience in responding to the 2003 wildfires, which consumed a similar amount of land and destroyed about twice as many houses. “The first time we had the fire fund, the response was pretty slow, but this time we were ready to go and people were familiar with us,” said Bob Kelly, the foundation’s chief executive officer. “We’re probably the experts in this now.”

The foundation’s staff members had their first meeting to discuss a response to the wildfires at 10 a.m. on Monday, October 22, a day after the fires started. Two weeks later, they completed an initial assessment of needs, and they plan to release a survey of long-term needs in early December.

As in 2003, the foundation will probably support a mix of established local charities and new organizations it creates to help people recover from the fires.

Mr. Kelly said he expects the foundation will help provide mental-health counseling, new clothing, college scholarships, and job assistance to people who have lost homes, savings, and employment because of the fires.

In some cases, the wildfires took a direct toll on charities. Nine of the San Diego Foundation’s 45 employees were forced to leave their homes because of the blazes. Many fund-raising events scheduled before the fires were canceled or morphed into benefits for fire victims.

New Approaches

For its part, the Red Cross, which was pilloried for its response to Hurricane Katrina, used the wildfires to test some new policies and partnerships it had developed in the wake of the Gulf Coast catastrophe.

A day after the fires broke out, officials of the Business Roundtable, an association of chief executives with top companies, called the Red Cross asking for ways that businesses could help.

Later that day, the Washington charity called back with an answer: It needed warehouse space, assistance in transporting goods, and fuel cards. The Business Roundtable then sent an e-mail message to its members, and by Thursday the Red Cross had received the support it needed.

That ease of communication was a result of a partnership signed in September between the business association and the Red Cross, said Johanna Schneider, a spokeswoman for the Business Roundtable. Many corporate leaders found that they didn’t know how best to help people affected by the 2005 Gulf Coast storms, Ms. Schneider said, so her organization has been working with the Red Cross since then to facilitate private companies’ response to disasters.

Save the Children also signed an agreement in recent months with the Red Cross and Church of the Brethren, this one designed to ensure that children get the care they need during an emergency.

As part of the agreement, Save the Children and the Red Cross had supplied shelters in California and across the country with kits of crayons, toys, and games so they would be available when a disaster struck.

The Red Cross’s emergency response benefited from stronger relationships with federal, state, and local governments, as well as with its chapters in the affected communities, Mr. Everson said. “I don’t think there’s any question that the government and other players all responded more effectively in this disaster,” he said. “We had excellent communication with FEMA, with DHS [the Department of Homeland Security], with the state and local players.”

Fraudulent Appeals

Fighting fraud was also a priority for organizations that responded to the fires.

The Red Cross and other charities checked the names of people who asked for assistance against a common database to ensure that individuals didn’t receive cash or other aid twice from different organizations.

The Internal Revenue Service, meanwhile, warned against a fraudulent e-mail message asking people for contributions to help victims of the wildfires. The “phishing” scheme, which tried to trick recipients into providing personal and financial information, went so far as to include text from an actual speech about the wildfires delivered by a member of the California State Assembly.

Two-and-a-half weeks after the fires started, many people in the charitable world were viewing the emergency response as a success. But the smaller scale of the fires did little to inspire confidence that relief groups could respond effectively to another catastrophe the size of the Gulf Coast storms.

“The many differences between the two disasters don’t do much to allay concerns that the weaknesses exposed during Hurricane Katrina have been addressed,” said Tony Pipa, author of Weathering the Storm: The Role of Local Nonprofits in the Hurricane Katrina Relief Effort, which was commissioned by the Aspen Institute.