After the Devastation

Nonprofit groups raise money, mobilize workers to help victims of Asia’s catastrophe

As millions of people in South Asia struggled to deal with the aftermath of the deadly earthquake and tidal waves, American relief organizations were scrambling to provide aid to victims and to raise the funds that will be needed to pay for one of the biggest humanitarian efforts in history. Just days after the December 26 catastrophe, charities had received contributions totaling more than $30-million.

The scope of the disaster, which killed tens of thousands in 12 countries, was staggering because it happened so quickly, and spread across a vast geographic area, ruining the infrastructure in many countries, said Ahuma Adodoadji, director for emergency and humanitarian assistance at CARE USA, in Atlanta.

“We’ve all seen many big ones, but this has to rank as one of the biggest disasters we have seen in modern times,” said Mr. Adodoadji.

Responding to the devastation will be particularly difficult because of widespread poverty in many of the hardest hit areas of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and India.

“Catastrophes always have a disproportionately more disastrous impact on those who live in poor communities, simply because they have very little to begin with,” said Mr. Adodoadji.

Personal Losses, Professional Challenges

The International Rescue Committee, in New York, was sending eight emergency specialists to the Aceh province of Indonesia. The workers will focus on finding fresh sources of water and making sure that they are protected from contamination.

“Often the single greatest cause of death in a disaster like this is not the actual crisis, but water-borne diseases that are spread shortly afterwards,” said Gerald Martone, the organization’s emergency director.

For the last three years, the International Rescue Committee has been working in the Aceh province to help people who have been displaced by civil conflicts. Because it had an established program in the area, the charity was able to move quickly to provide relief, says Mr. Martone, but the organization also had to deal with the possibility that several of its staff members in the country had been killed.

Two days after the disaster, the organization was able to locate only 19 of its 21 Indonesian staff members, and many of those who were accounted for had lost everything.

“If you can imagine the challenge faced by our staff,” says Mr. Martone, “in addition to recovering from their own devastating personal losses, they are now being mobilized to respond to the community at large in the role of a professional aid worker.”

Fast Response to Appeals

The scope of the disaster is making it difficult for aid organizations to set fund-raising goals.

Hours after the earthquake and tsunamis struck, Islamic Relief, in Burbank, Calif., sent out an e-mail appeal to 30,000 donors asking them to contribute toward a $1.35-million goal the organization set for relief efforts. But as the number of people affected by the emergency became clearer, the organization realized it would need more money. So a few days later, the organization sent another appeal with a new goal of $5-million.

Officials at CARE USA, in Atlanta, also realized that the group’s initial goal of $2.5-million would be insufficient as more-detailed reports of damage came in from its staff members.

Three days after the disaster, CARE USA had already raised $3.5-million for its relief efforts in areas affected by the tsunamis.

Other relief organizations saw a swift response to appeals, with much of the initial money coming in over the Internet:

• Three days into the emergency, the American Red Cross, in Washington, had raised $18-million. In addition, Amazon.com, the online retailer, collected more than $2.3-million within 24 hours of starting to accept donations for the American Red Cross on its Web site.
• During the same time, the U.S. Fund for Unicef, in New York, raised $2.5-million. In a single day, the charity took in $1.5-million online and $500,000 in corporate grants. “The amount of money that’s been raised already exceeds the money we’ve raised by this time in response to any other emergency we’ve fielded,” said Jeffrey Towers, Unicef’s vice president for marketing and development.
• Two days after the crisis started, Oxfam America, in Boston, had raised a little more than $500,000, with $300,000 of that coming in through its Web site, while Mercy Corps, in Portland, Ore., had brought in more than $250,000.
• In the first 24 hours after the disaster, Save the Children, in Westport, Conn., received online donations totaling $300,000, while Jewish World Services, in New York, saw $200,000 come in via the Internet and its toll-free hotline in the first 36 hours.

The timing of the disaster — just after the Christmas holiday — had mixed implications for giving, fund raisers said.

“Our phones are ringing off the hook,” said Richard Walden, president of Operation USA, in Los Angeles. “Our phone-answering devices are maxed out. I wish I knew what the formula was that makes this disaster so compelling versus, say, a famine in Africa.” He suspects the holiday timing might be causing people to be more generous.

Nancy Aossey, president of International Medical Corps, in Santa Monica, Calif., however, says that her organization’s efforts to call its major donors have been hampered by the fact that a lot of them were away from home during the holidays.

Many foundations and corporations have begun to make gifts to benefit relief efforts.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in Seattle, contributed a total of $3-million to five international-relief groups.

The International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, and World Vision, in Federal Way, Wash., each received $500,000 from the Gates Foundation, while CARE USA and Save the Children each received $750,000.

The Pew Charitable Trusts, in Philadelphia, made a $1-million gift to the American Red Cross, and the First Data Western Union Foundation, in Denver, donated $1-million to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

While the initial response to the disaster has been extremely heartening, Eric Block, a spokesman for Mercy Corps, said he hoped it would prove to be just the beginning, given the extent of the long-term recovery projects that will be needed.

“It’s massive,” said Mr. Block. “Lives have been shattered, as well as livelihoods, so this will not go away quickly.”

Brennen Jensen contributed to this article.