PhilanTopic

One Year Later: Rebuilding After the Great Tōhoku Earthquake

James Gannon is executive director of the Japan Center for International Exchange/USA, which works to strengthen U.S.-Japan cooperation across a range of fields. Recently, Laura Cronin, a regular contributor to PhilanTopic, spoke with Gannon about the progress of rebuilding efforts in the quake- and tsunami-affected Tohoku region of the country.

Philanthropy News Digest: The earthquake and tsunami affected a four hundred-mile region along the northeastern coast of Japan -- an area roughly comparable to the BosWash corridor in the United States. What are conditions in the region like now, a year later? And how have people in the affected region, and the country at large, been changed as a result of the disaster?

James Gannon: Even now, some communities are still disposing of rubble, while things appear almost normal in other, less-hard-hit areas. Compared to the scenes of utter devastation we saw a year ago, there has been extraordinary progress. But if you spend any time in these communities, you realize the depth of the wounds. More than three hundred thousand people are still without homes, and that is weakening traditional community ties. Many of the jobs in the fishing industry, agriculture, and small business have not returned, resulting in high unemployment and all the social problems it brings.

Meanwhile, women who lost family members, men who are ashamed that they can no longer support their families, and children traumatized by the disaster are grappling with mental health issues. The stoicism of the people in the Tōhoku region is stunning -- even by Japanese standards -- but most acknowledge that the road to recovery will be long.

On the other hand, there has been a resurgence of ambition and a sense of mission in the country. Seeing what's at stake, many people -- especially young people -- are losing patience with the status quo, and that is bound to affect politics, business, and society in general. In particular, many young people are searching for ways to contribute to the recovery by seeking out careers in the nonprofit sector, partly because Japanese nonprofits have played such a visible and indispensable role in helping the nation recover from the disaster. It is not entirely accurate, but some people cite the 1995 Kobe earthquake, when thousands of volunteers streamed into the city to help, as the birth of civil society in Japan. To extend the analogy, the 3/11 disaster is likely to be seen by historians as the coming of age of Japanese civil society.

PND: U.S. nonprofits responded by collecting funds and then collaborating with Japanese groups. Can you describe what those partnerships have looked like and give donors a few tips about best practices for operating on an emergency basis with overseas partners?

JG: At JCIE, we just completed a survey which estimates that Americans donated $630 million for disaster recovery efforts -- the largest philanthropic outpouring in U.S. history to help another developed nation. And while forty different U.S. nonprofits raised more than $1 million for the disaster, it's clear that the ones which have been most effective are those that worked in close partnership with Japanese organizations on the ground. Those that succeeded tended to do one of two things: they fundraised specifically for Japanese organizations, giving those organizations wide latitude to use the funds as they saw fit; or they forged partnerships that involved intensive interactions with the organizations that eventually received their funds and based Japanese-speaking staff on the ground to help with coordination.

Partnerships are always hard. The U.S. side has been surprised at just how limited the capacity of Japan's relatively young nonprofit sector is, while the over-extended staff in Japanese NGOs have found it difficult to explain that things need to be done differently in Japan, even when it seems counterintuitive. The partnerships that have been most successful have had three characteristics. One is a strong level of mutual trust, ideally built up before the disaster. The second is the availability of funding to support personnel and overhead costs for Japanese partners, especially since domestic Japanese funders are reluctant to cover administrative expenses. And the third is a long time horizon. The situation in the disaster zone has been extraordinarily fluid, and that has been compounded by uncertainty about government policy as overburdened national and local
officials have scrambled to keep up with events. Many excellent NGO initiatives have been scuttled at the last minute just because national or local government funding suddenly became available for a competing project or because unanticipated policy shifts made a given course of action unwise.

PND: The Internet and social media bring a new immediacy to natural and human-made disasters. People see events unfolding in real time and can donate with the click of a mouse or instantly through their smartphones. How did the new environment enabling rapid-fire donations play out in the context of the Tōhoku quake?

JG: It was a great blessing and, frankly, it saved many lives. But it also created imbalances. While groups with and without expertise in Japan scrambled to react to the disaster, roughly 70 percent of U.S. funding ended up going to large American development and relief agencies with no specific country expertise. That's because they had the technological and fundraising expertise to quickly launch online appeals, the media savvy to get the word out, and the trust of the general public. While they often face pressure to disburse their funds quickly, they've done a good job of getting money into the hands of major disaster relief groups in Japan. Compared to groups with more Japan expertise, however, it has been harder for them to drill down to the community level and identify the types of small, local nonprofits that are indispensable to any long-term recovery. So, one can see how the turbocharged nature of the philanthropic response to the disaster may have skewed funding toward relief and away from recovery, where it is now sorely needed.

PND: JCIE is a small nonprofit by American standards. Yet because it was one of the few Japanese groups with a U.S. staff and cross-cultural experience, it had to take on a whole new role the afternoon of March 11. What did your team learn in the days and weeks that followed, and what recommendations do you have for NPOs that may find themselves faced with the same kind of "emergency mission drift"?

JG: At JCIE, we had to make a hard-nosed decision about whether we could contribute in a sustainable manner by launching a disaster fund. We were fortunate in that we had three decades of experience in philanthropic facilitation, and the decision to launch a fund was in keeping with our overall mission. Our fundraising efforts naturally evolved into a broader effort to advise other overseas donors and directly link them with Japanese organizations that needed and need help. Still, I think all U.S.-based groups responding to the disaster -- including JCIE -- underestimated the amount of staff time required to do this properly. Another thing many U.S. organizations overlooked is the fact that it is not necessary, and often not advisable, to spend time trying to identify the final beneficiary of a grant or award. There are a number of good intermediary organizations in Japan that are familiar with local conditions and are more than capable of re-granting to effective community-based organizations.

PND: Because Japan is a rich country with lots of high-tech infrastructure -- including nuclear plants and factories linked to the global just-in time manufacturing economy -- the experience of a massive disaster was very different for it than it would have been for a less industrialized country. A year after the quake and tsunami, what can we learn from Japan in terms of relief and recovery, as well as preparedness and emergency planning?

JG: We can learn so much. Japan's disaster preparedness is light years ahead of ours, and we would do well to study what worked. For example, all twenty-seven bullet trains that were operating in the region when the quake hit were stopped automatically by earthquake sensors so that not a single one derailed. Earthquake sensors also shut down elevators in Tokyo and elsewhere as the first rumblings were detected, so that only a hundred and sixty-three people needed to be rescued from stalled elevators. It's hard to imagine New York City faring so well.

Examining why some communities have been bounced back more quickly is also enlightening. The places where the recovery has really taken hold all tend to have strong local leaders, mechanisms in place to empower local citizens to help themselves, and a vibrant web of formal and informal community organizations.

Finally, it's the first time ever that Americans have tried to provide disaster aid to another developed country, at least on this scale. And the experience has clearly demonstrated the wisdom of strengthening ties between disaster relief organizations here and in other countries through regular interaction before disaster strikes. That's something all disaster relief organizations should keep in mind as they think about their capacity and plan for the future.

-- Laura Cronin

Weekend Link Roundup (January 21-22, 2012)

Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....

Civil Society

Filming at the 20th anniversary INTRAC conference in Oxford, England, Nicetreefilms interviewed Demos senior fellow Michael Edwards, author of Just Another Emperor? The Myths and Realities of Philanthrocapitalism (2008) and Small Change: Why Business Won’t Save the World (2010), about the role and future of civil society via-a-vis business and the public sector.

To mark the second anniversary of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruling that said corporations have the same right as people to spend money in elections, Demos has curated a dozen or so blog posts, articles, policy briefs, and multimedia presentations that highlight the anti-democracy implications of the decision.

Disaster Relief

On the heels of the two-year anniversary of the earthquake that killed hundreds of thousands in Haiti and left up to a million more homeless, the Adventure Project's Becky Straw spotlights a couple of social enterprises that are using technology to boost the Caribbean nation's economy.

Leadership

On her About.com blog, Joanne Fritz responds to Getting Attention blogger Nancy Schwartz' MLK Day-inspired call for nonprofit bloggers to write about their dreams for the sector by sharing her hopes for the charities she admires: that they do not become stuck in the past; that their fundraising appeals address the big social issues of our day; and that they work to create organizational cultures that value learning, adequately reward hard work, and treasure the people who engage with their causes.

And on her blog, Allison Fine, co-author (with Beth Kanter) of the Networked Nonprofit, says her dream "is for organizational leaders to switch from viewing the world through a lens of scarcity to one of abundance...."

Elsewhere, How to Become a Nonprofit Rockstar co-author Rosetta Thurman shares eleven tips guaranteed to make your search for a job in the nonprofit sector a successful one.

Philanthropy

Writing on the Center for Effective Philanthropy blog, Paul Beaudet, associate director of the Seattle-based Wilburforce Foundation, explains why funders need to stop asking nonprofits to "do more with less."

Regulation

On his Harvard Business Review blog, Uncharitable author Dan Pallotta criticizes New York governor Andrew Cuomo for launching a nonprofit "executive pay witch hunt." "Elected officials consistently conflate smart investments in the talent, organizational strength, and long-term planning necessary to address massive social problems with fraud," writes Pallotta. "Why? Because they lack a fundamental understanding of how long-term social problems get solved and because the humanitarian sector has been too terrified to stand up to them."

Social Media

And Social Media for Social Good author Heather Mansfield explains why Pinterest, a new invitation-only social networking site that allows users to create virtual "pinboards," is worth your nonprofit organization's time.

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a great week!

-- The Editors

Weekend Link Roundup (January 14-15, 2012)

Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....

Disaster Relief

On the two-year anniversary of the earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people and left over a million Haitians homeless, the Chronicle of Philanthropy has an updated look at how sixty aid groups spent the money they raised for relief and recovery efforts. (Requires subscription.)

And Sandra Miniutti advises those who donated to relief and recovery efforts to "check back" with the organization(s) to which they gave. "Find out what the charity been able to accomplish. If you like what you hear and the charity says it has ongoing needs, then consider making a follow-up donation to support those ongoing efforts."

Education

A recent post on the Give2Asia blog profiles the Afghan Institute of Learning, a Give2Asia grantee, and its founding executive director, Dr. Sakena Yacoobi. Established surreptitiously during the early days of Taliban rule, AIL organized and operated a network of eighty underground schools that educated three thousand girls across the country. Today, Yacoobi's organization operates in the open and has touched more than 8 million Afghans through its network of schools, teacher and nurse training programs, and healthcare services.

Impact/Effectiveness

Using findings from the Ford Foundation-sponsored report Transactions, Transformations, Translations: Metrics That Matter for Building, Scaling and Funding Social Movements, Beth Kanter considers the opportunities and challenges involved in measuring the impact of social change movements and networks.

Philanthropy

The Bridgespan Group's Alison Powell reviews a recent Foundation Center report that examined the center's own grantseeking processes as a way to highlight some of the costs of capital that donors impose on all grantseekers.

On the Philanthropy Potluck blog, Naomi Pesky, director of marketing and communications at Minnesota Philanthropy Partners, shares a recent video created by the organization as part of its ongoing efforts to make its grantmaking processes more transparent.

In a post on her Philanthropy 2173 blog, Lucy Bernholz looks at at a handful of recent reports on giving, including one from the Pew Center for the Internet & American Life and Harvard's Berkman Center that looks at mobile giving in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. According to the report, the majority of people who used their cell phones to give to relief and recovery efforts made a spur-of-the-moment decision to do so and then told their family and friends to donate via text message as well. In her post, Bernholz wonders how this type of "tech-enabled" giving might change how and why philanthropic research is conducted.

About.com's Joanne Fritz shares a new infographic from Frugal Dad that highlights the impact of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates's philanthropic work.

Center for Effective Philanthropy president Phil Buchanan takes a close look at Oliver Zunz's new book Philanthropy in America and uncovers "seven examples of things [in philanthropy] that are often portrayed as new -- or not done -- despite the fact that this is not, historically, the case."

The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy's Kevin Laskowski shares his new year’s resolution for philanthropy: increase funding for community organizing among lower-income communities and "Emerging Majority" communities. Writes Laskowski:

I’m sure you're shocked to hear this from someone here at NCRP. However, one thing we saw in 2011 and we will likely continue to see in 2012 is the robust participation of some philanthropists in important public policy debates. Bill Gates, Eli Broad and others have played a large role in shaping the discussions about education reform efforts. A number of conservative philanthropies, such as the Koch brothers and the Bradley Foundation, have had an outsized influence on national debates for some time. Some see this involvement as a pernicious force in our democracy, but my concern is not that the wealthy participate in politics. My concern is that they're increasingly the only ones who do or can....

Scince/Technology

And on the Credit Writedowns site, Rick Bookstaber looks at the role computers and technology are playing in the destruction of the middle class.

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a great week!

-- The Editors

2011 Year in Review: A Disastrous Twelve Months

Fourteen months after a magnitude 7.0 quake brought devastation to Haiti, disaster on an epic scale struck again in March when the most powerful earthquake ever to hit Japan triggered huge tsunami waves that inundated coastal regions of the Tohoku region. The twin disasters, which claimed the lives of nearly 16,000 people and displaced some 440,000 people, also were responsible for a series of partial meltdowns and releases of radioactive material at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex on the coast northeast of Tokyo, resulting in the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people and raising global concerns about the safety of nuclear power.

The initial response to the disaster -- which, with an estimated economic cost north of $200 billion, figures to be the most expensive in history -- was one of restraint, as the Japanese government asked donor governments and individuals in other countries to hold off on providing emergency assistance until it could more clearly identify needs in the stricken region. A week after the disaster, the fifteen largest relief organizations had raised the relatively modest total of $25 million -- a figure that eventually surpassed $160 million -- with most of that collected by the American Red Cross. The global corporate community, on the other hand, moved quickly to assist one of its biggest trading and investment partners, contributing over a $137 million for relief efforts in just three and a half days.

Closer to home, spring brought unusually violent weather to the United States, as first Alabama, where more than three hundred people were killed and thousands left homeless after more than a hundred tornadoes ripped through the state in April, and then Joplin, Missouri, large portions of which were leveled by a killer tornado in May, bore the brunt of the assault.

An entirely different kind of disaster, severe drought, tightened its grip on the Horn of Africa as spring turned to summer. Indeed, by mid-July drought conditions had left more than twelve million people in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and neighboring countries in need of emergency assistance, and parts of southern and central Somalia were later declared famine zones by the UN. Much of that territory, of course, was controlled by al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda-linked Islamist group that has prevented many international aid organizations from operating in the region. As the crisis intensified, the U.S. government issued new guidelines making it easier for such groups to deliver needed food to famine-stricken parts of the country without fear of prosecution -- a decision hailed by most NGOs, even though it appeared to apply only to the situation in Somalia.

Pakistan, which continues to struggle with its own Islamist and tribal insurgencies, was hit with serious flooding in August for the second consecutive year, resulting in another sluggish response from that South Asian country’s feckless government -- and a lukewarm relief effort from the international community.

In contrast, even the best-laid disaster-preparedness plans were no match for Hurricane Irene, which in August left a trail of destruction from South Carolina to Vermont, causing at least 56 deaths and an estimated $7.2 billion in damage, before finally exhausting itself over Labrador.

After yet another major quake, this one in eastern Turkey in October, it looked as if the year would end on a quiet note. But then flash floods struck the Philippines in late December, causing more than nine hundred deaths and bringing to a close a year that, in disaster terms, will go down as one for the record books.

Related Links:

Businesses, Charities Step Forward With Assistance for Stricken Japan (3/15/11)

Donations to Japan Quake Relief Efforts Trickling In (3/16/11)

Corporate Donations to Japan Earthquake Relief Efforts May Surpass Haiti Contributions (3/17/11)

U.S. Relief Organizations Defer to Japanese Agencies as Rescue Efforts Continue (3/18/11)

Fundraising for Japan Disaster Relief Surpasses $100 Million Mark (3/22/11)

One Month After Disaster, Red Cross Commits Additional $40 Million for Japan Relief (4/13/11)

American Red Cross Contributes Additional $30 Million for Recovery Efforts in Japan (5/02/11)

Needs Mount as Alabama Digs Out After Tornadoes (5/04/11)

Organization Formed to Spur Recovery in Tornado-Ravaged Joplin (6/22/11)

Disaster Relief Agencies Raised $22.3 Million for Tornado Relief Efforts in Alabama (7/26/11)

Somalia Famine Aid Trickles In (8/03/11)

U.S. Issues New Guidelines Loosening Aid Restrictions to Famine-Stricken Somalia (8/04/11)

United Arab Emirates Pledges $1 Million to Joplin High School (8/13/11)

Red Cross Contributions to Japan Tsunami Relief Efforts Reach $260 Million (8/24/11)

Corporations, Foundations Pledge $1.75 Million to Hurricane Irene Disaster Relief Efforts (9/02/11)

International Red Cross Begins Major Aid Push in Somali Famine Zones (10/06/11)

Turkish Red Crescent, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies Mount Earthquake Recovery Operations (10/25/11)

Coca-Cola Foundation Awards $1 Million to Turkish Red Crescent Society (10/27/11)

UN Launches 2012 Somalia Aid Appeal, Warns About Impending Crisis in the Sahel (12/14/11)

Lilly Endowment Awards $1.5 Million to Joplin Recovery Fund (12/24/11)

Weekend Link Roundup (December 17 - 18, 2011)

Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....

Communications/Marketing

In a post on her Non-Profit Marketing blog, Network for Good's Katya Andresen weighs in on a new Silverpop white paper that looks at where digital marketing trends are headed. Among other things, writes Andresen, nonprofit marketing staff should expect their work to become more personal, "human," and mobile in 2012.

Disaster Relief

On Oxfam International's From Poverty to Power blog, Chris Anderson, Oxfam's global adviser for disaster risk reduction, makes the case for more investment in disaster preparedness, noting that investment in DRR accounts for less than 1 percent of official humanitarian assistance to the world's twenty biggest recipients of such assistance.

Diversity

Rosetta Thurman shares a new article from the Nonprofit Professionals Advisory Group in which Katherine E. Jacobs and Andrew Grant-Thomas explain that when it comes to recruiting there "is no such thing as a diverse candidate."

Education

Writing about federal education policy in the New York Times ("Class Matters. Why Won't We Admit It?"), Helen Ladd, a professor of public policy and economics at Duke, and Edward B. Fiske, a former education editor at the Times and the author of the Fiske Guide to Colleges, pose what they believe is a critical question: "Why do presumably well-intentioned policy makers ignore, or deny, the correlations of family background and student achievement?" Ladd and Fiske propose that rationales for ignoring such correlations range from a belief that schools are capable of offsetting the effects of poverty, to not wanting to lower expectations for poor students, to the huge challenges posed by tackling poverty as a whole. "Let's agree," they write in closing, "that we know a lot about how to address the ways in which poverty undermines student learning. Whether we choose to face up to that reality is ultimately a moral question."

Global Health

On his Humanosphere blog, Tom Paulson has some nice things to say about Seattle-based PATH's acquisition of the nonprofit drug company OneWorld Health.

Philanthropy

On his Inside Philanthropy blog, Todd Cohen commends foundations and corporations for "moving beyond grantmaking and investing more of their assets to address critical social and global problems." "[T]hat kind of innovation," adds Cohen, "is critical to help make the social economy more productive in serving people and places in need."

Philanthropy 2173's Lucy Bernholz shares her annual list of new buzzwords and phrases, including evidence based, shapeshifting, and disruption.

Social Media

Nonprofits shouldn't confuse content curation -- "the organizing, filtering and 'making sense of' information on the web" -- as aggregation, writes social media expert Beth Kanter in a recent post on her blog. "The debate in content curation circles [right now]," adds Kanter, "is that [if] we treat content curation as aggregation, then we’ll miss the point and just create noise. We don't need more content but a human point of view guided by intelligent tools that can help others find and make sense of the information and resources out there."

Transparency

On the Foundation Center's Transparency Talk blog, Bill Somerville, executive director of the Philanthropic Ventures Foundation, offers his take on the relationship between transparency and effectiveness that was the subject of recent event in San Francisco co-hosted by the Foundation Center and the Center for Effective Philanthropy. Writes Somerville:

Does transparency and glass pockets help effectiveness? I don't know. What difference does it make for people to know foundation salaries? If it does make a difference, then we are talking about accountability not effectiveness. Is the foundation accountable in being efficient, frugal, responsible, responsive and productive?

Foundations have a special place in the community in that they are answerable to themselves. They are independent and have maximum latitude to do their work. They have a unique asset in that their money is not political, not in competition with anything or anyone, and they have no ax to grind. So, what are the factors of excellence in the exercise of philanthropy? A question foundation personnel should ask themselves every day....

One is leadership. Foundations should exercise leadership in their willingness to venture where others haven't gone, to take risks, to think into the future rather than indulge themselves in endless paper. A leader is one who brings out the best in others. Isn't this what foundations should be doing?

Another factor of excellence is modesty. Money is the tool of philanthropy and money is power. Foundation personnel must understand that it is not their money nor is it their power. Foundations are investing funds in people and programs worthy of the investment. They are not "giving money away."

Somerville concludes by noting that his comments are meant to "create a dialogue and stimulate other people to add their thoughts on what makes for effectiveness." Here's your chance to join that conversation. What do you think an "effective" foundation looks like? And what is the relationship between transparency and accountability? Use the comments section to share your thoughts....

That's it for now. With the holidays looming, most of our shopping still be done, and miles to go before we sleep, we'll be posting a little less frequently over the next couple of weeks. Here's hoping you get to spend time with friends and loved ones. Have a great holiday!

-- The Editors

Yéle Haiti Responds to NY Post Allegations

Yesterday, we posted a digested version of a November 27 New York Post article ("Questions Dog Wyclef's Haiti Fund") which suggested that earthquake-relief funds raised by Yéle Haiti, a charity co-founded by hip-hop star Wyclef Jean (who is Haitian), in the months after the quake had been used improperly. At the heart of the Post's allegations are P&A Construction, which is run by Warnel Pierre, the brother of Jean's wife, Claudinette, and two independent contractors, Miami-based Amisphere Farm Labor Inc. and Samosa SA, in Port-au-Prince.

That article generated the following response from Hugh Locke, a co-founder of Yéle Haiti who served initially as executive director of the charity's Haiti operation and then as president of the combined Haiti and U.S. operations (until this past February). In the interest of fairness (and the facts), we thought it was important to reprint Locke's comments in their entirety.

Feel free to weigh in on Locke's comments, the Post's reporting, and/or our version of the Post story in the comments section below.

_____________________

<snip>

My name is Hugh Locke and I was until earlier this year the president of Yéle Haiti. I would like to set the record straight regarding the NY Post article.

Bad journalism can be the result of sloppiness, incompetence, or a distortion of facts in order to serve a bias or editorial agenda. All three of these traits are on full and splendid display in the November 27, 2011, New York Post article "Questions Dog Wyclef's Haiti Fund" by Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein. These two reporters have Wyclef Jean, co-founder of Yéle Haiti along with Jerry Duplessis and myself, in their sights in a no-holds-barred effort to sell papers, and no pesky truth is going to stand in their way.

The Yéle staff and our various partners who braved a chaotic and dangerous situation in order to deliver emergency relief to victims of the January 12, 2010, earthquake in Haiti are true heroes in my book. Ms. Vincent and Ms. Klein cannot be allowed to discredit our collective efforts with falsehood and innuendo. What follows are the facts and figures to counter to each accusation in their Post article.

1. How much did Yéle receive in donations following the earthquake in Haiti and how much of that money was used for emergency relief?

NY Post: "In the months following the devastating earthquake in Haiti, a charity run by hip-hop star Wyclef Jean spent a pittance of the money it took in on disaster relief and doled out millions in questionable contracts....Records show that Yele Haiti spent just $5.1 million for emergency relief efforts, including food and water delivery to makeshift survivor camps...."

HL Response: As reported in Yéle Haiti’s 2010 IRS 990 tax filing, the organization received $16 million in donations that year (figures quoted are rounded off). More than half of these donations were received in the weeks immediately following the earthquake. Over the course of 2010 we spent a total of $9.2 million -- $8.2 million for programs (most of that for emergency relief and a small portion for other Yéle programs) and $1 million (or roughly 11 percent) on administrative overhead. Yéle made a decision not to expend all the funds raised in 2010 during that same year because people in the tent camps continued to need support. Consequently $6.8 million was carried over to cover operations in 2011.

Clarifications about contracts, none of which were "questionable," are answered in the points that follow.

Yéle’s activities in 2010 were a combination of emergency relief and long-term rebuilding. Here is an overview of what we accomplished.

Emergency Relief: Yéle worked with non-elected community leaders and elders within a core group of 30 of the tent camps throughout Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas to identify needs and coordinate aid delivery. These targeted camps had a combined population of just under 80,000. Here is a summary of what was distributed by Yéle over the course of 2010:

• 2,000 tents of various sizes
• 873 tarp kits for building shelters
• 4.2 million gallons of filtered water delivered in trucks (including to cholera areas)
• 233,000 10-ounce pouches of water
• 32,850 bottles of water in various sizes
• 98,000 hot meals
• 14,400 items of canned and packaged food
• 270,310 nutrition bars
• 4,425 individual care bags with personal toiletries and other items
• 8,705 items of new and used clothing
• 3,520 pairs of new and used shoes
• 1,000 pairs of new boots
• 14,300 pounds of medical supplies
• 1,240 windup and/or solar flashlights
• 2,500 windup and/or solar radios
• 26 generators
• 900 sheets and blankets

In response to the cholera outbreak in October of 2010, Yéle purchased 2 million water purification tablets and received a donation of 50,000 bars of soap and 100,000 bottles of hand sanitizer. These items were distributed by going tent to tent in the camps, noting that a portion of them were distributed in 2011.

Employment: There were very few jobs following the earthquake and even fewer for the 1.3 million people living in tent camps. Yéle began a program in 2010 that employed up to 2,000 people at a time to clean the streets of Port-au-Prince, paying them a respectable $7 a day. Towards the end of the year a vocational training program in carpentry, plumbing, and masonry was added to give youth marketable job skills.

Youth Development & Education: Yéle provided weekly support for two residential orphanages that were damaged in the earthquake. In additional to providing operational costs, one orphanage was completely rebuilt and more than doubled in size while the second was repaired and some additional facilities added. Yéle managed an onsite medical service for all the orphans as well.

Tree Planting & Agriculture: Haiti has less than 2 percent tree cover and imports roughly 70 percent of its food. Yele’s response in 2010 was to increase the capacity of local farmers, working with them to plant trees and introduce better farming practices that resulted in higher yields. A second Yéle program involved commissioning peasant farmers to grow vegetables that were delivered weekly to up to 2,000 orphans.

2. What was the role of Amisphere Farm Labor Inc. in Yéle’s emergency relief efforts?

NY Post: "A purported Miami business called Amisphere Farm Labor Inc. received a whopping $1,008,000 as a 'food distributor'. No trace of the company could be found last week in the Sunshine State, but records show the company’s head, Amsterly Pierre, bought three properties in Florida last year, including a condo in an upscale waterfront community.

"The firm incorporated in August 2008 but never filed any of the subsequent financial paperwork required to do business in Florida, according to the Florida Department of State.

"The address listed for the business is an auto-repair shop in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood, where a worker said he had never heard of Pierre or Amisphere. Pierre did not return a call for comment...."

HL Response: Getting food to people who were in makeshift tent camps following the earthquake was a priority. It was particularly important to send in hot meals because people had limited capacity to cook in the camps. With this in mind we approached Amsterly Pierre, a businessman in Haiti who had experience in this field, and asked him to set up the operation on our behalf. For this purpose he used the bank account of a company he had registered in the US, Amisphere, because the banks were not yet functioning in Haiti.

In the midst of the chaos that characterized Port-au-Prince at that time, Mr. Pierre used his operation on the ground there to find a kitchen that, although damaged, could be made operational with a minimum of effort. He found sources of food, some of which had to be brought in by truck from the Dominican Republic, and assembled a staff that could cook and deliver thousands of meals at a time.

The hot meal program began on January 24 with the first distribution of hot meals to tent camps, with a particular focus on women and children living there. Over the next three months a total of 98,000 hot meals were served in the course of 15 distributions that ranged between 5,000 and 7,000 at a time.

While the primary emphasis was on the tent camps, during the early phase of the program we provided some of these meals to members of the national police force who were themselves living in tents, as the government was unable to give them any food or wages for the first month and a half following the earthquake. We also provided meals during that same time for a number of civil servants who were in a similar situation but who were determined to stay on the job to do what they could to restore services for the population.

In addition to the hot meals, we also contracted Mr. Pierre to develop a dry food ration kit. These were prepared in the Dominican Republic and brought in by truck and distributed in tent camps. Each kit had enough rations for an average family for one week. A total of 700 of these kits were distributed.

The term "whopping" should be applied to the impact Mr. Pierre had on Yéle’s behalf. Each hot meal fed an average of two people, and the ration kits fed five people for a week -- so through Mr. Pierre we were able to feed around 200,000 people at a cost of about $5 per person at a time when food was scarce, hot meals almost unheard of, and delivery of food into the tent camps was regularly causing riots.

3. What was the role of Samosa SA in Yéle’s emergency relief efforts?

NY Post: "Yele Haiti also paid $577,185 to a company called Samosa SA, based in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, as a 'bulk water supplier'. But some of that money went to rent a house for Yele Haiti volunteers on Samosa’s property at the inflated price of $35,000 a month...."

HL Response: Samosa SA is a Haitian company that Yéle contracted to provide fresh water to those living in tent camps. Samosa utilized 14 of their 1,200-gallon tanker trucks to deliver an average of 34,000 gallons of water a day on a rotating schedule to 30 different tent camps. The water came from an aquifer on the Samosa property and they filtered the water on site using a reverse osmosis process. While Samosa provided the trucks and drivers, Yéle sent its own staff to accompany each delivery -- having made sure that each tent camp would be ready with volunteers to help manage the operation and residents lined up with pails ready to take the water.

Water distribution began on January 24 and over the course of the remainder of 2010 a total of 4.2 million gallons of purified water was distributed at a unit cost of 10¢ a gallon. The unit cost went up in October when half the water was diverted as Yéle contributed to fighting the outbreak of cholera in the rural areas north of Port-au-Prince. The increased cost was a combination of more fuel being required to drive outside the capital plus a bonus paid to the drivers because they were afraid to go into the midst of the cholera outbreak when it had just begun and the population was terrified and did not yet understand how it was spread.

There was a second and separate contract with Samosa SA for Yéle to rent a seven-acre walled property that included a house. The property and house were rented from May 1 onwards for $15,000 a month.

The house was used by Yéle as a center of our relief activities, serving as both headquarters and main office. Our U.S. staff and visiting volunteers also stayed there. The house had three bedrooms and by using mattresses and sleeping bags we were able to accommodate as many as 30 people at a time, depending on the scale of the distributions or other emergency relief programs that were being implemented.

The rest of the property was used as the site of a warehouse operation where relief items such as tents, tarps, blankets, food, clothing, shoes, medical supplies, windup flashlights, windup radios, and other items were stored, sorted, and loaded onto trucks for delivery to the 30 tent camps that we served on a regular basis.

The warehouse operation had two components -- we installed a large concrete slab on which we placed nine permanent 40-foot containers and had space for six more that shuffled between the property and the port. The second component involved a 44-foot diameter geodesic dome that we erected and which was used for both storage and sorting.

Lastly, we built a facility that was intended to serve the needs of amputees. Two geodesic domes were erected, but the facility was not completed when it was discovered that the initial government estimates amputees had been significantly overstated. The two domes were taken down and are currently in storage.

As the overall emergency relief needs in Haiti changed, Yéle subsequently moved out of the rented Samosa property in early 2011.

4. What was the role of P & A Construction in Yéle’s emergency relief efforts?

NY Post: "Yele Haiti paid five contractors to accomplish its goals, including P&A Construction --- which received $353,983 and is run by Warnel Pierre, the brother of Jean’s wife, Claudinette...."

HL Response: Yéle contracted a company called P & A Construction to design and build several things, and in keeping with a policy of transparency we included the fact that the owner of the company is a relative of Wyclef Jean in our IRS 990 tax filing for 2010.

Finding a contractor who can build anything in Haiti on time and on budget is a rarity, and Warnel Pierre was that person. As we did with all contracts, estimates for projects were reviewed against standard costs per square foot or the relevant unit of comparison, depending on the project. In all cases we were satisfied that Mr. Pierre was providing a good service at a competitive rate.

Among the services provided by Mr. Pierre during 2010 were the following:

• repair and complete rebuilding and expansion of the Jean et Marie Orphanage that had been damaged in the earthquake;
• repair and the addition of a kitchen, bathrooms, and two new classrooms at the Bon Samaritan Orphanage that had been damaged in the earthquake;
• installation of electrical power lines, septic and water storage tanks, and a well; re-surfacing with gravel and a drainage system, building of toilets and shower facility, and other upgrades to the Place Fierte tent camp in the Cité Soleil slum of Port-au-Prince;
• installation of concrete slab and related ramps for container-based warehouse storage;
• installation of concrete slab base, plumbing, bathrooms, and showers for the amputee facility, including assisting in the installation of two geodesic domes on the site; and
• installation of concrete slab and surrounding gravel drainage area for geodesic dome used as part of the warehouse operation, including assisting in the installation of the dome.

5. What did Yéle do to ensure transparency of operation?

NY Post: " 'Given the fact that Yele Haiti was involved in a swirl of controversy after the earthquake in Haiti, it's all the more reason to be more transparent to ensure donors that their funds are going to help people,' said the Better Business Bureau’s Bennett Weiner...."

HL Response: Yéle hired the prestigious accounting firm of RSM McGladrey to improve its level of transparency and together we developed one of the most comprehensive and timely systems of disclosure of any NGO working in Haiti. Beginning in September 2010, Yéle regularly updated this financial information on its website.

6. Did Yéle lose $244,000 in 2009?

NY Post: "The group lost $244,000 in 2009...."

HL Response: This allegation is simply made up. Yéle began 2009 with $57,421 in cash on hand that was carried over from the previous year. To that was added donations in 2009 totaling $749,480, for a total of $806,901. We spent $994,344 in 2009, with the difference of $187,443 between what we spent and what we received being invoices that came in the latter part of 2009 and which were paid in 2010. There was no loss.

</snip>

(Locke is currently writing a book about his six years of humanitarian service in Haiti.)

Is the 'One Campaign' Being Unethical?

(Nick Scott is assistant to the publisher at PND. In his previous post, he chatted with Barbara Ibrahim, director of the Gerhart Center for Philanthropy at the American University in Cairo, about the situation in Egypt.)

Choose the better tagline to promote disaster relief efforts in the Horn of Africa: "The situation in Somalia is complicated, but we'll do our best." Or, "Let's put an end to famine." It's the latter, of course, even though the first is a more accurate characterization of the situation on the ground.

Does it matter?

With contributions from American donors for famine relief lagging well behind previous disaster appeals, and the UN reporting a significant gap between the amount of aid pledged and the $2.5 billion it says is required to address the crisis, U2's Bono has pulled out all the stops, recently enlisting a Who's Who of celebrity spokespeople for his One Campaign, which bills itself as "the campaign to make poverty history." Mike Huckabee, Michael Bloomberg, Arianna Huffington, K'naan, Clive Owen, Jessica Alba, Idris Elba, Colin Farrell, Liya Kebede, Annie Lennox, Justin Long, Rob Lowe, Ewan McGregor, Evan Rachel Wood, and Kristin Davis -- all make appearances in the campaign's famine relief video appeal, The F Word - Famine is the Real Obscenity.

According to Sam Worthington, president of InterAction, a coalition of 190 international development NGOs, aid groups have raised some $60 million in private contributions from U.S. donors. "This is sharply lower than the $1.29 billion that...InterAction members raised for Haiti," he told NPR, adding that Americans tend to be especially generous after singularly dramatic events like a major earthquake or tsunami, but that it is harder to generate that kind of response for a slow-motion disaster like a famine, in which solutions to the problem tend to be elusive.

Aiming to send the message that there is a solution to the famine in East Africa, the One Campaign tells us:

Now we know how to stop this. Early Warning Systems. Food Reserves. Better Seeds and Irrigation. More Peace and Security. Drought is an Act of Nature. Famine is Man-Made. Go to One.org. Let's put a *bleep*ing end to famine....

That is strong messaging, for sure, but it's also somewhat misleading. Food reserves, agricultural development, and early warning systems have done an excellent job of staving off disaster in neighboring Ethiopia, which suffered its own devastating famine in the mid-1980s. But in Somalia,

• the weak central government can barely maintain control over Mogadishu, Somalia's capital, let alone the entire country;
• Al-Shabaab, an Islamist militant group, controls large swaths of the country’s southern region and is unpredictable and loosely organized; its central leadership doesn't even control the actions of regional commanders. And even in neighboring countries, the situation for foreign aid workers remains dangerous;
• complex clan-based divisions complicate the situation further, as do secessionist groups that operate in and control semi-autonomous regions (see map).

Indeed, last month the president of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF),
Dr. Unni Karunakara, caused a stir when he criticized other aid groups for ignoring the reality of the situation in order to solicit donations. "We may have to live with the reality that we may never be able to reach the communities most in need of help," said Karunakara.

MSF has been working in Somalia for twenty years, and we know that if we are struggling, then others will not be able to work at all. The reality on the ground is that there are serious difficulties that affect our abilities to respond to need. There is a con, there is an unrealistic expectation being peddled that you give your £50 and suddenly those people are going to have food to eat. Well, no. We need that £50, yes; we will spend it with integrity. But people need to understand the reality of the challenges in delivering that aid. We don't have the right to hide it from people; we have a responsibility to engage the public with the truth....

Regardless of the level of resources commited, the sad fact is that no one -- not even Bono -- can guarantee that you and I acting together can "put an end to famine" in Somalia. This is never going to be a case of "sufficient resources + the correct plan = problem solved." That said, we can do more -- a lot more -- to support the excellent relief work being done in the region.

What do you think? Does it matter that the One Campaign's famine-relief messaging is overly simplistic and somewhat misleading if it manages to catalyze action and raise awareness of the situation? Does the campaign have a responsibility to engage the public with the truth of the situation on the ground, or is it more important to secure the donations and support that is so vital to saving lives in the region? Is effective but misleading messaging okay when the stakes are so high?

-- Nick Scott

A 'Flip' Chat With...Gara LaMarche, Senior Fellow, NYU Wagner School of Public Service

(This video was recorded as part of our 'Flip' chat series of conversations with thought leaders in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors. You can check out other videos in the series here, including our previous chat with NextGen:Charity co-founder Jonah Halper.)

In conjunction with the tenth anniversary of 9/11, I attended a Philanthropy New York event last week titled "Balancing Civil Rights & National Security: A Debate Led by Gara LaMarche."

During the event, LaMarche, now a senior fellow at New York University's Wagner School of Public Service and until this summer the president and CEO of the Atlantic Philanthropies -- a New York City-based foundation that endeavours "to make lasting changes for people who are disadvantaged by their economic situation, race, nationality, gender, age, disabilities, immigration status, sexual orientation, political affiliation or religion" -- moderated a discussion on how the Bush administration's efforts to protect Americans after 9/11 led to an increase in civil rights violations around the country.  LaMarche also invited the panelists -- American Civil Liberties Union board president Susan Herman, author of Taking Liberties: The War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy; Eric Ward, program executive for the human rights and reconciliation initiative at Atlantic Philanthropies; Rosa Brooks, a professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center; and Karen J. Greenberg, visiting fellow and director of Fordham Law School's Center on National Security -- to weigh in on what future administrations (and the current one) could do to protect and extend civil liberties while keeping the country safe from terrorist attack.

After the session, I had a chance to chat with LaMarche about the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act, the successes and failures of the "war on terrror," the philanthropic response to 9/11, and some of the big challenges confronting the United States today.

(If you're reading this in an e-mail, click here.)

 

(Running time: 12 minutes, 46 seconds)

What do you think? Has the "war on terror" outlived its usefulness as a metaphor? To what extent does "national security" involve more than just physical attacks on the homeland? And, in an increasingly interdependent world, what should organized philanthropy be doing to help defuse the many threats to security confronting the U.S.? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

-- Regina Mahone

Weekend Link Roundup (September 10 - 11, 2011)

In conjunction with the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, this week's roundup features a selection of blog posts, articles, and magazine features that look back and reflect on one of the worst days in American history.

Disaster Relief

In a recent CNNMoney article, Aaron Smith shares a chart from the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University that compares the charitable response to five of the biggest disasters of the last decade: 9/11, the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, and the earthquake and tsunami in Japan earlier this year.

Journalism/Media

Instead of shrinking from the enormity of the events of September 11, the editors and staff at New York magazine decided to embrace it. The "Encyclopedia of 9/11" is likely to stand as the definitive chronicle of that terrible day for years to come.

Today's New York Times offers a special section "on the decade's costs and consequences, measured in thousands of lives, trillions of dollars, and countless challenges to the human spirit."

In the Atlantic, journalist and New York World producer Michael Keller interviews Columbia Center for Oral History director Mary Marshall Clark about the September 11th Oral History Narrative and Memory Project, which attempted to capture "how the attacks affected the lives of everyday New Yorkers over three years following the attacks...."

"If you'd asked me in the days after the event what I'd be feeling now, on the 10th anniversary, I think I'd have told you this would be a momentous anniversary with much introspection, many lessons learned," writes Public Parts author Jeff Jarvis on his Buzz Machine blog. "I'd have vowed that we must never forget and thus must revisit the scene and our memories, as I did even days later (that's why this blog was born). [And] I'd have been wrong...."

Nonprofit Management

Given the many the challenges of the last decade, GuideStar president and CEO Bob Ottenhoff explains why it's important for nonprofits to focus on developing resiliency. Writes Ottenhoff:

Resilience is an intriguing word to be used in the concept of 9/11. The dictionary defines resilience as "the power or ability to return to the original form after being bent or stretched." It doesn’t mean simply enduring or succumbing -- but taking determined steps to return to normal.

It's an important concept for all of us aspiring to run high-performing organizations. Adapting suggests we need to constantly respond to the world around us and not get so fixed on a certain course of action. The word "resilience" reminds us that despite our best efforts, bad things will happen to us and our organizations, but it is within our power to respond affirmatively....

On the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy's Keeping a Close Eye blog, Christine Reeves reflects on a recent Chronicle of Philanthropy article in which David Campbell, former vice president for programs at the Community Service Society of New York City, looked at how donors and nonprofits responded to the September 11 attacks and offers some takeaways of her own.

Voluntarism

On her About.com blog, Joanne Fritz urges individuals and nonprofit organizations to visit the 911.org Web site and share what they will be doing to mark the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

Julia Smith and Diana Hsu of Idealist share a list of special events and volunteer opportunities for individuals interested in participating in the federally designated National Day of Service and Remembrance.

Last but not least, the Case Foundation's Jean Case offers a few reflections on the anniversary and a list of resources for Americans who want to honor those who perished on 9/11 with an act of service. "No matter how you choose to get involved," writes Case, "I hope you'll take a moment this weekend to pause and reflect on the significance of the day, and find opportunities to join with your community and loved ones to honor our nation and all those who have sacrificed in the name of freedom."

-- Regina Mahone

Ten Years Later: A Q&A With Mary Marshall Clark, Director, Columbia Center for Oral History

For many people, the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks promises, as FDNY lieutenant Adrienne Walsh recently told New York magazine, "to be huge. An end point of sorts." We will always remember, Walsh added, but "the city can't stop." And life goes on.

Collective memory, in all its mutability, is the specialty of Mary Marshall Clark, director of the Columbia (University) Center for Oral History. When we first spoke to Clark, in 2003, she and her colleagues were wrapping up their work on the September 11, 2001 Oral History Narrative and Memory Project. That project eventually became part of the larger 9/11 Oral History Project, which comprises more than nine hundred recorded hours with over six hundred individuals. Many of the accounts gathered for the project have been collected in After the Fall: New Yorkers Remember September 2001 and the Years That Followed.)

Earlier this week, we asked Clark about the project, the difference between the mainstream media's version of 9/11 and the individual stories collected by Clark and her colleagues, and what has changed over the last ten years in the way individuals construct meaning out the events of September 11.

This is the fourth in our series of Q&As with executives and thought leaders in the field about the meaning and impact of 9/11. (Click here for our Q&A with Gordon J. Campbell, president/CEO, United Way of New York City; here for our Q&A with Lorie Slutsky, president, New York Community Trust; and here for our Q&A with David R. Jones, President/CEO, Community Service Society of New York.) Check back over the weekend for additional 9/11 reflections.

Philanthropy News Digest: What has the September 11th Oral History Narrative and Memory Project done to preserve the events of 9/11 for historians, scholars, and others?

Mary Marshall Clark: We at the Columbia Center for Oral History have conducted nearly one thousand hours of interviews with around six hundred people on the effects of September 11, 2001, as event and aftermath, on the city as a whole. We began our work in the immediate aftermath of September 11 and went back to those we interviewed in 2001 in 2002 and 2003. We interviewed additional people in 2004 and 2005, when the project officially closed. The scholarly value of these interviews lies in the fact that the project was interdisciplinary in nature. Peter Bearman, sociologist and head of the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University, was critical in establishing the intellectual framework and methodology for the project, teaching oral historians how to think about conducting interviews in the present and how to widen their curiosity to include people who might not be in their personal and professional networks.

The life histories we took with people at the site and people dispersed throughout New York City -- immigrants, Muslims, Afghans, Sikhs and Latinos -- together form a living quilt of memory that shows how 9/11 was perceived distinctively by New Yorkers. We conducted life histories that demonstrated how differently 9/11 was experienced by people according to class structures, ethnic and national origins, immigrant history, proximity to the towers and those who lived at a greater distance but might have been vulnerable in other ways. It is too soon to describe our archive, now fully accessible and available to the public, as a collective memory of New York City over the last decade. But we believe that along with other distinctive and important oral history projects like Ruth Sergel and Pamela Griffiths' Voices of 9.11 Project, we have created the basis for an oral collective memory of the last decade that can serve historians and others for the next fifty to a hundred years.

PND: Is the mainstream media's version of 9/11 different from the version, or versions, you're hearing in individual oral histories?

MMC: The mainstream media cannot contain a collective or even social memory of the events. What it is good at is highlighting individual stories, usually those that revolve around dramatic escape, dramatic loss, or highly personalized stories of recovery. Peter Bearman, co-founder and co-director of the Narrative and Memory Project, was especially interested in how the mainstream media might tempt people to talk in formulaic ways about the tragedy, and made it possible by securing an emergency fieldwork grant from the National Science Foundation to get out into the field quickly before that happened.

We agreed that the life history method is the finest way to mine the rich diversity and multi-generational history of New Yorkers, and that approach worked against a sound-bite or greatest-hits approach to telling stories. As we invited people to tell their stories of origin and personal development before and after their 9/11 story, the temporal and geographical span of the interviews was a large one. To give you an example, one of the Afghan cultural leaders we interviewed began his personal history by reaching four hundred years into the past, in his effort to establish the historical context in which the story should be listened to and interpreted.

PND: What, if anything, has changed over the last ten years about how people construct meaning out of the events of 9/11?

MMC: We see both subtle changes and more profound changes in individual life stories. For those who experienced extreme loss or injury, of course there was change and struggle. But we also see tremendous resilience and recovery, especially for those who crossed lines of social difference to embrace Muslims, Arab Americans, Sikhs, Latinos, and people of lower-economic status who were very affected in the aftermath. In many ways, New York recovered more quickly and effectively than we could have anticipated. This is no surprise, as it is a global city made up of refugees, immigrants, and sympathetic people who embrace difference as a natural part of daily life. And individuals, institutions, and organizations worked extremely effectively with each other to help those in need.

Strange as it may seem, it is still too soon to say what 9/11 meant to the city as a whole. We asked questions we knew were important to this generation. We hope those were the right questions, but we also hope that we have collected the kinds of narratives that can answer the questions of the next generation.

PND: When we last spoke, you said that new technologies such as e-mail did not pose a threat to oral history. With the advent of social media, do you still feel the same way?

MMC: I do. Twitter doesn’t impress me or scare me. The process of telling, face-to-face, in uninterruptable ways will never be replaced by the social media, not in a city like this one.

-- The Editors

Ten Years Later: A Q&A With Gordon J. Campbell, President/CEO, United Way of New York City

For most Americans, New Yorkers in particular, September 11, 2001, is a day they will never forget. As the towers burned, then collapsed, and as we waited -- hopefully but helplessly -- for survivors to emerge from the rubble, many took it as a given that everything had changed. In the months that followed, PND interviewed dozens of thought leaders from philanthropy and the civil society space about the philanthropic response to the attacks and the meaning of 9/11. Those interviews subsequently were collected in two volumes and made available as downloadable PDFs on the Foundation Center's Web site.

Ten years later, we know that 9/11 didn't change everything -- although it changed much. With the ten-year anniversary of the attacks approaching, PND reached out to some of the people we interviewed back then -- and a few we didn't -- to ask them what had, and hadn't, changed in the ten years since that terrible day.

On September 11, 2001, Gordon Campbell was chief executive of Safe Horizon, the largest victims' services agency in the United States and -- through the September 11th Fund -- the first organization to issue emergency-relief checks to 9/11 families on a same-day basis. In July 2007, Campbell was named president and CEO of the United Way of New York City, another critical provider of short- and long-term services after the attacks. Check back throughout the week for additional 9/11 Q&As.

Philanthropy News Digest: Did 9/11 change the way human service organizations in the city work together?

Gordon J. Campbell: I have long felt that the Family Assistance Center set up on Pier 94 represented "best in class" from a social services perspective. Federal, state and city agencies, along with local human service organizations were co-located under one roof -- providing victims and family members with a "one-stop shopping" experience in meeting their immediate needs. It was not about one organization, but many organizations collaborating in a client-focused, results-oriented way. Just imagine the progress we could make if we could use that model in helping everyday New Yorkers access the benefits, supports, and assistance they need to lead safe, healthy, and productive lives.

PND: Did the United Way of New York City change the way it does its business as a result of 9/11?

GJC: On the day of the attacks, United Way of New York City joined the New York Community Trust in establishing the September 11th Fund to meet both the immediate and longer-term needs of victims, families, and communities that were affected. Time has shown that the Trust and United Way made the right decision when they kept the fund's mission broad and recognized that mental health and other needs created by the tragedy would last for many years.

God forbid New York City should have another disaster on that level, but if that were to happen, United Way would be prepared to step up and create a similar fund to channel the world's generosity to where it is needed most. I think we also learned a great deal about harnessing the skills and in-kind resources made available by corporate America. IBM, JPMorgan Chase, and McKinsey & Company are just some of the corporate partners whose pro-bono assistance was crucial, especially during the early days of the fund.

PND: Did 9/11 create needs in the greater New York area that have not been addressed? Is the United Way doing anything to address those needs?

GJC: We now know that first responders, day laborers, and volunteers who were part of the rescue and recovery effort in Lower Manhattan were exposed to hazardous environmental conditions, as were residents and workers who fled the area. The effects of that exposure are really coming to the fore ten years later, as more and more of these people are diagnosed with cancer and devastating lung ailments.

A little over a year ago, United Way of New York City awarded a one-time grant of almost $750,000 to the WTC Health Program at Mount Sinai Medical Center to provide a comprehensive range of treatment services to responders to the 9/11 attacks who lack adequate health insurance and require treatment for life-threatening conditions not covered by federal funding. Truth be told, we all recognize that this is a relative drop in the bucket compared to the medical needs that will inevitably crop up in the years ahead.

PND: Are social service organizations in the city better prepared to respond to a disaster of the magnitude of 9/11 than they were on September 10, 2001?

GJC: Before 9/11 there was no single go-to organization when it came to coordinating post-disaster services, ensuring consistent case management, tracking clients, and the like. The September 11th Fund supported the 9/11 United Services Group, an organization created to maintain a database of victims and coordinate the efforts of forty charities. USG ensured that agencies talked to each other so people in need would not fall between the cracks. USG is now dormant, housed by the Human Services Council; however, should a similar disaster occur, the organization would be in an excellent position to take a leadership role. Unfortunately, there hasn't been funding to support the kind of disaster planning that would ensure that the city's nonprofit sector would be fully prepared to respond.

-- The Editors

Weekend Link Roundup (September 3 - 4, 2011)

Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....

Communications/Marketing

On her Non-Profit Marketing blog, Katya Andresen reflects on a recent AdAge article in which Bonnie Carlson writes that the "national mood of anxiety is causing interesting marketing trends," including the general public giving more credence to their friends' opinions than to corporate marketing messages. For nonprofits, writes Andresen, "this means we need our champions reaching out to their circles of influence -- and we need to treat social media not as a fundraising tool but a listening post and relationship-builder."

Corporate Philanthropy

In response to a recent New York Times article in which it was reported that twenty-five of the nation’s largest corporations paid their CEOs more than they did in taxes, Center for Effective Philanthropy president Phil Buchanan revives his argument against the blurring of "the 'boundaries' between" for-profit and nonprofit entities.  Writes Buchanan: 

Perhaps, rather than looking to major corporations as our saviors, we should ask them to do what they do best -- create products and jobs that make our lives better and economy stronger -- while fulfilling their responsibilities by paying their taxes. We should ask them to spend a little less time devising elaborate -- if legal -- strategies for avoiding taxes. And perhaps we should also ask them to spend a little less time pretending that their role in dealing with our social problems is bigger than it is, can be, or should be....

Leadership

Following the announcement last week that Hewlett Foundation president Paul Brest will retire next summer, Tactical Philanthropy's Sean Stannard-Stockton shares a few examples of Brest's contributions to the field.

Philanthropy

Philathropic Initiative chairman and founder Peter Karoff revisits an article he wrote in December 2001 on the "ways that philanthropy could play an important role in shaping the post-9/11 world" and offers some thoughts on where stand a decade later. Writes Karoff:

Over the past ten years, more foundations, more donors, and more NGOs have increasingly focused on addressing many of these strategies and related themes, and that does represent progress.

U.S. philanthropy is more global than before.

Since 9/11 the intersections and linkages between issues facing the U.S. and the rest of the world have become clearer, and public perspective broadly reflects that change, even if what to do about these issues has not.

With philanthropy, there is, and always will be, a relevance question.

Is philanthropy’s role material to the scale of issues that are rooted in massive social, cultural, and religious disruptions -- the answer today is no.

Could it become so in the future? I believe the answer is yes, but only in combination with others -– civil society, corporations, social enterprises based on the market economy or hybrids, and government....

Lisa Ranghelli, director of the Grantmaking for Community Impact Project at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, has some advice for donors looking to support rural communities.

On her Philanthropy 2173 blog, Lucy Bernholz shares a list of philanthropy-related books worth reading this fall, including Laura Arrillaga Andreessen's Giving 2.0 and Philanthropy in America: A History by Olivier Zunz.

Social Media

Zoetica partner Geoff Livingston says "we've [now] entered the post social media revolution era...when the dust settles...when consolidation occurs, and best practices are refined."

In a related vein, NTEN's Holly Ross, in a guest post on the Getting Attention blog, shares some lessons about approaching various social media "places" through "channel-specific conversations."

Last but not least Beth Kanter wonders whether, and how, stories can be turned into useful data.

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a great week!

-- Regina Mahone

ANNOUNCEMENT: Hurricane Irene Emergency Funds

To help nonprofits in the Mid-Hudson Valley region that were affected by Hurricane Irene, the Dyson Foundation in Millbrook, New York, has created two emergency grant programs for organizations in Columbia, Dutchess, Greene, Orange, Putnam, and Ulster counties. The foundation will expedite reviews of all requests for emergency funding.

Nonprofit organizations can apply for emergency funds to help cover uninsured damages or losses incurred because of Irene. To apply, organizations should submit a one-page narrative describing the damage or losses and a budget and/or invoice of estimated recovery costs to submissions@dyson.org.

The foundation also will make grants to nonprofit organizations providing direct services to residents of the Mid-Hudson Valley. These funds are to provide emergency financial assistance to help people impacted by Hurricane Irene. The foundation will accept applications from organizations with well-established emergency financial assistance programs. To apply, organizations should submit a one-page narrative description of the expected use of the funds and a supporting budget to submissions@dyson.org.

Residents and businesses in selected New York State counties may be eligible for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. To reach FEMA by phone, call (800) 621-3362.

The Dyson Foundation does not provide financial assistance to individuals and does generally not fund faith-based organizations or institutions for activities and/or programs of religious teaching or training.

For further information or questions about emergency funding from the foundation, contact Michell Speight at (845) 790-6315 | mspeight@dyson.org, or Cecilia Stancell at (845) 790-6319 | cstancell@dyson.org.

Remembering Ruth Brinker

(Michael Seltzer is a frequent contributor to PhilanTopic. In his last post, he wrote about philanthropy and the LGBT rights movement.)

When Ruth Brinker founded Project Open Hand in San Francisco in 1985, she could not have foreseen the day that the nation's leading meals-on-wheels program for people living with AIDS would become a disaster-relief organization.

Four years later, on October 17, 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake struck Northern California. The Marina district of San Francisco was particularly devastated. Numerous homes were destroyed or damaged, leaving residents without food or shelter. Like many other nimble nonprofit organizations, Project Open Hand acted quickly. From its kitchen in the Mission District, which had come through the quake unscathed, volunteers rushed to deliver meals to earthquake survivors using BART. In many cases, Project Open Hand was the first organization to arrive on the scene with assistance.

When I first heard this story, I was serving as the executive director of Funders Concerned About AIDS and was reminded of words from the report of the Presidential Commission on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus issued on June 24, 1988. In the report, Admiral James D. Watkins, whom President Ronald Reagan had appointed to chair the commission, noted that "The spark of human spirit...rises high when faced with the gravest of human tragedies...."

Earlier this month, Ruth Brinker passed away peacefully at the Eden Villa Assisted Living Center in San Francisco. In the difficult days ahead, as people up and down the Eastern Seaboard scramble to recover from the damage caused by Hurrican Irene, Brinker's spirit will live on in the small acts of countless neighbors and nonprofit organizations across the region.

Below is a tribute to Ruth from Tom Nolan, Project Open Hand's current executive director.

*****

Dear Friends of Project Open Hand,

On August 8, 2011, Ruth Brinker, Founder of Project Open Hand, passed away peacefully at Eden Villa Assisted Living Center in San Francisco.

In 1985, having retired from a career in food services, Ruth heard about a neighbor who died of AIDS. She was shocked to discover that malnutrition was as much the cause of her neighbor's death as the illness itself. She realized that many others living with AIDS were in the same situation and she knew she could do something. Ruth began preparing meals in her kitchen and delivering them to seven people. That number soon grew and others came to volunteer to help her cook and deliver hot, nourishing meals all over San Francisco to people living alone and struggling with a devastating illness. "I didn't think I was doing anything special," Ruth said.  "I did what anyone would have done under those circumstances."  With this simple act of kindness, repeated day after day with compassion and care, Project Open Hand was born.

When Ruth delivered her meals, she took the time to talk with each person and help each feel loved and cared for.  For Ruth, it was more than nutritious, dependable food.  It was "meals with love."

From Ruth's vision evolved an organization, supported by a generous community and dedicated volunteers and staff, who provide daily nutrition and compassion to some of the most vulnerable individuals in our community: people living with HIV/AIDS, the homebound, critically ill with any serious illness, and seniors throughout San Francisco and Alameda County, totaling over 7,000 people every year. Her vision has gone on to inspire over a hundred other organizations throughout the U.S. as well as [in] the United Kingdom and South Africa, bringing people together to provide nutrition with compassion to their neighbors in need.

All of us who knew Ruth and have shared in her work over the years will miss her, but we know that, as long as her vision continues, her wonderful spirit will live on. 

Tom Nolan
Executive Director
Project Open Hand

Weekend Link Roundup (August 27 - 28, 2011)

Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....

Disaster Relief

In conjunction with the sixth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the folks at the Greater New Orleans Foundation explain why "the notion that the inequities surfaced by Katrina were endemic to the South and that it took a disaster like Katrina to expose them…is wrong on both counts." The post continues:

What happened was that a category 5 hurricane blew ashore and laid bare what was already in plain sight not only in New Orleans, but in many cities across the United States and indeed across the world. All we had to do was look and see.

Despite all the investments in the Gulf South since Katrina, despite all our hand-wringing and breast-beating, these inequities persist to this day.

Many New Orleanians are rightly committed to rebuilding "better than before." But what does this mean when it comes to our commitment to our most vulnerable neighbors?

Education

On his Rock the Schoolhouse blog, Jim Stergios says the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education should launch a competition similar to the X Prize that "would allow those in the [education] field to figure out how to [boost student achievement]." Writes Stergios:

People in power don't have to be scared to say they don't have all the answers -- or at least answers that hold true for every inch of our intricate tapestry of cultures. And the nice thing about competitions is that you can focus on key issues, like STEM preparedness or whatever is viewed as an important national interest...."

Fundraising 

On her About.com blog, Joanne Fritz looks at a new study from the Dunham Company which found that nearly 7 in 10 Americans (68 percent) say they "will give more sparingly" to charity in the coming months."

In an interview with Philanthropy Journal's Todd Cohen, National Philanthropic Trust president and CEO Eileen Heisman offers some advice to nonprofit fundraisers: "The key to raising money in a tough economy...is to keep in touch with donors, make a clear and compelling case for support, enlist at least a third of the board to cultivate prospects, and make sure the executive director devotes at least a fourth of her or his time to fundraising."

Impact/Effectiveness

Anne Bauers, research manager at the Minnesota Council on Foundations, shares key findings from a new California Endowment paper that offers guidelines for grantmakers and nonprofits interested in forming effective coalitions.

Leadership

On the Social Citizens blog, Emily Yu shares "the five Cs to success," as proffered by PepsiCo Worldwide CEO Indra Nooyi at this year's BlogHer conference:

1. Be curious;
2. Have courage and confidence;
3. Refine your communication skills;
4. Be consistent;
5. Never lose your moral compass.

Philanthropy

Guest blogging on the Tactical Philanthropy blog, Billions of Drops in Millions of Buckets author Steve Goldberg explains what is needed to make social impact bonds -- which "raise funds from private investors, which are then used as working capital by nonprofit organizations providing prevention programs that can reduce the need for costly government remediation and safety net responses" -- as a catalyst for "the impact investing movement and bring other forms of private capital to the table."

Social Media

On Beth Kanter's blog, George Weiner, chief technology officer at DoSomething.org, explains how nonprofits can make data-driven decisions, turning tweets into action.

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a great week!

-- Regina Mahone