September 19, 2002 | Read Time: 2 minutes
September 11: Perspectives From the Field of Philanthropy
This book aims to capture images of the “forceful response” of the country’s charitable institutions following the September 11 attacks.
Through interviews, the leaders of more than a dozen foundations and charities involved in relief efforts give personal accounts of their organizations’ responses in the days and months following the attacks.
Many of the nonprofit leaders discuss lessons learned. Gordon J. Campbell, chief executive officer at Safe Horizon, a New York group that offered emergency assistance to victims and established a toll-free September 11 information hotline, emphasized the importance of being mindful of staff needs and offering them support during such a disaster.
“At the same time you’re asking your staff to be as responsive as possible to the victims of a disaster, they’re going through their own sets of issues,” he said.
Joshua Gotbaum, executive director of the September 11 Fund, describes the creation of the fund, the time frame for distributing money raised for both immediate and long-term needs, and comments on the news-media coverage of how charities responded to the attacks, which he describes as “abysmal.” “It was much easier to find one person who was dissatisfied than to report on a very complex effort involving tens of thousands of people,” he says. “The genuine anguish, frustration, and confusion of victims was taken as proof of incompetence on the part of the disaster-relief charities.”
Other chapters include accounts of the joint response of the United Way of New York City and the New York Community Trust, the challenges for human-service organizations, and the recovery of nonprofit organizations that suffered damage to their offices or had been hurt economically by the attacks.
Publisher: Foundation Center, 79 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10003-3076; (212) 807-3690 or (800) 424-9836; fax (212) 807-3691; http://fdncenter.org; 182 pages; free; also available for download on the Web site; I.S.B.N. 1-931923-13-2.
