Gifts Continue to Pour In for Recovery Efforts; Other Disaster News

In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, more than $1.13-billion has been raised by charitable organizations working on relief and recovery efforts, according to the latest Chronicle of Philanthropy tally. The American Red Cross has raised the most money, with $505-million as of October 23.

The September 11th Fund, created by the New York Community Trust and the United Way of New York City, had brought in $186-million by October 23.

Other donations include: $50-million to the Salvation Army; $10-million to the Families of Freedom Scholarship Fund, an education fund for children of victims; and $8-million to Catholic Charities.

The September 11th Fund appointed a director and chairman of the board with extensive backgrounds in philanthropy and government to oversee the distribution of money the fund has raised.

Joshua Gotbaum, a former official at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, was named director, and Franklin A. Thomas, former president of the Ford Foundation, was appointed chairman. Besides overseeing the distribution of the September 11th Fund, they will also be in charge of the September 11th Telethon Fund, which was started with $150-million in pledges from the celebrity telethon, “A Tribute to Heroes.”

To harness the unprecedented outpouring of donations for international aid, President Bush established America’s Fund for Afghan Children and called on all U.S. children to donate $1 each. He also asked nonprofit groups to organize youth-oriented events to raise money for the fund.

The White House is collecting the money, and the American Red Cross and the U.S. Agency for International Development will supervise the relief fund, which will provide aid to children in Afghanistan. The president said he based the fund on the 1930’s March of Dimes campaign, which raised money for a polio vaccine.

To keep track of the charities receiving money in New York, the state attorney general’s office has set up a new Internet site at http://www.wtcrelief.info, which will provide information about the disaster-aid groups working to help victims of the attack on the World Trade Center. The site lists about 180 groups that have registered with the office and has information about their priorities and finances, as well as connections to their Web sites. The office plans to expand the site to include a database of charities, to help determine what needs remain unfilled, and to allow victims to search for charities serving particular needs.

The American Red Cross and the United Way of America are warning donors about a scam that attempts to steal credit-card information by means of an e-mail message disguised as an appeal for donations to help relief efforts.

The subject line of the message reads, “Your support is needed,” and the body of the e-mail message includes an attachment. Clicking on the attachment opens an online form that is designed to look like the Red Cross’s Web site. The text accompanying the form asks the recipient of the message to make a gift to the September 11th Fund, established by the United Way and the New York Community Trust.

Prospective donors are then asked to fill out the form, which includes fields for name, address, phone number, and credit-card information. Once the form is complete, the information is uploaded to an unidentified Web site that is not related to the Red Cross.

The Red Cross says that legitimate e-mail appeals sanctioned by the organization include a link to a secure Web site, and that no organization associated with the group accepts credit-card information via e-mail. On September 14, the Red Cross sent an e-mail appeal to 30,000 previous online donors, but has not sent any fund-raising messages since then. Some local Red Cross chapters and companies supporting the organization’s relief efforts have also sent appeals via e-mail.

“The way that they’ve been able to use our graphics makes it look like it’s from the Red Cross,” says Phil Zepeda, Red Cross’s director of online media. “It’s deceptive, and it’s extremely sad that people want to make a difference with their donation . . . and they’re just being had.”

Hoping to create thousands of “living tributes,” Congress is considering legislation that would honor those who died in the September 11 attacks by directing the Corporation for National and Community Service and the Points of Light Foundation to coordinate volunteer-service projects in the name of each victim killed. The projects could include a broad number of activities, such as cleaning public parks or serving meals to the hungry, according to Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, who proposed the legislation.

A Web site and database would be created to catalog the projects, which would be finished by September 11, 2002. Text of the legislation, S. 1556, is available on http://thomas.loc.gov.