November 29, 2001 | Read Time: 2 minutes
By Elizabeth Greene
Running from downtown Manhattan on September 11 to escape the buildings collapsing a few blocks from her public-relations firm, Dana Victoria Sophia thought about the children who were suddenly left without one of their parents, recounts Smart Money magazine (December). Within 24 hours, she had co-founded the Twin Towers Orphan Fund, and has since raised more than $350,000 to help meet those kids’ education and health needs.
The all-consuming nature of the endeavor — fielding some 200 phone calls and 800 e-mails a day, and dealing with the likes of the man who showed up with 1,000 teddy bears donated by Missouri schoolchildren — was something Ms. Sophia had never anticipated. Like many others who set up funds to raise money in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, she was unprepared for the work and the type of issues that would arise.
Since the attacks, more than $1-billion in donations has poured in to established charities like the American Red Cross and to dozens of grassroots groups, like Ms. Sophia’s, that were created in response to the attacks. “In many ways, raising the funds was the easy part,” states the article. Among the issues the funds’ managers must now address: Who should be the recipients? What kinds of needs must be met? When should the money be distributed?
At the Twin Towers Orphan Fund, Ms. Sophia had to ask herself whether a payout today would hurt the fund’s chances to aid more youngsters in the future, and in at least one case that meant offering a student a loan rather than an outright donation.
While Ms. Sophia has given careful thought to such matters, nonprofit observers are concerned, writes Smart Money, that money from some of the funds may not go to the people who need it the most, and that victims and their families will be compensated but not actually helped. They also want to be sure that money will be left over for long-term needs that are not apparent now.
And nonprofit officials are worried not about whether enough money is being collected but about whether too much has come in, according to the article. “My concern is that these dollars are still being raised and people really don’t know what for,” says J. Andrew Lark, a trustee of the Frances L. & Edwin L. Cummings Memorial Fund and executive director of the Bagby Foundation for the Musical Arts, both in New York. “It’s wonderful the victims and families will be taken care of. That gives everyone comfort. But at some point, enough is enough.”
