Richard Walden

Operation USA, one of the world's most agile and innovative relief agencies, on average, runs on about $1.5M (cash) per year. That sum allows us to deliver between $10M-$20M in humanitarian and development aid and make a number of carefully chosen grants to community-based organizations throughout the world. We are...

Is it me or do most people feel a growing sense of despair as American politics descends into the abyss of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)? You'd think the Cold War was still a fact of life as politicians and their wildly overpaid consultants and media strategists lob one stray missile...

My 10th grade World History teacher, Patricia Logsdon, died this week at age 88. She spent 40+ years teaching at Culver City (CA) High School.

Normally, the passing of older people may spark a brief moment of recognition and nostalgia ("a la recherche du temps perdu"), but in Pat's case,...

What if 2012 produced no new wars and saw existing conflicts all wind down to a negotiated peace?

That would take an aroused global public to push hard on both governments and the private sector (e.g., requiring the global defense industry and energy and natural resources companies' full cooperation)...

I was tempted to try to make this post go viral with my preferred title: 2012: The Guerrilla Army of the Poor [which is the actual name of a 1980s Guatemala-based group].

Our ailing economy, afflicted by unemployment, wars, the housing collapse and the credit crunch; and its attendant...

Aside from faux nonprofits like some of the major health insurance companies, universities, trade groups, influential cultural organizations and many high end hospitals -- which are really take-no-prisoners businesses with million dollar-plus executives -- the vast number of nonprofits in our communities struggle to provide essential services in health, education,...

Over the next year, between $5-$6 billion will flow from Americans into thousands of candidates' and parties' campaign chests. From there, most of the money will be used to pay for promotional media via television, the internet, print and direct mail outreach and, of course, campaign consultants.

This is discretionary...

Imagine you are at Operation USA headquarters (www.opusa.org) this weekend watching Hurricane Irene's path of destruction. If you are not a local, state or federal government agency or government relief contractor like the American Red Cross, what would you do?

Pretend it's nearly a zero sum event. You...

As a relief worker, it's more than a bit disconcerting to look at the low level of the African famine relief response -- especially when you've been around long enough to remember the 1984 Ethiopian famine and its massive tug on the hearts of the world. NGOs and United Nations...

How long has Somalia endured cycles of violence, political dismemberment and famine?

Without giving away my advanced age, just after Ronald Reagan was elected but before he was sworn in, Henry Kissinger was desperately trying to reprise his roles as U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor. Kissinger knew...

The armies of fundraising, such as the American Red Cross, slick televangelists, and their front organizations claiming to do relief, professional international relief groups, and small private groups of concerned Americans wanting to help, are off the mark in the Japan quake-tsunami-radiation disaster.

Efforts ranging from sophisticated internet and...

As the one-year anniversary of the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti is upon us, Los Angeles-based International relief agency, Operation USA, is hard at work on recovery in Haiti, and specifically in the City of Jacmel. Construction continues at the site of Operation USA's largest project, the rebuilding of Ecole...

In the late 1980s, the U.S. government's foreign assistance program Administrator, USAID's M. Alan Woods, accepted some advice from a friend: let your contractors use product donations in support of their projects and let them count the dollar value of those donations as part of required "matching funds" for certain...

I'll never forget that late September day in 1979 when I received a call from Blake Edwards. He had been in Malibu watching local TV on a Saturday which was broadcasting from the LA Zoo. In between a monkey act and Billy Barty, came photos of my first relief airlift...

Wouldn't it be great to turn Thanksgiving Dinner and "Black Friday" turbo-shopping into something useful for Americans and others in need? Maybe just skipping one Thanksgiving dish or cutting down on the number of bottles of wine consumed this Thursday would save enough to make a meaningful gift to a...

The global community has joined together in rejoicing at the rescue of 33 Chilean miners. It is a wonderful example of a collective will to perform a near-miracle in drilling over 2000 feet through solid rock in a fragile area repeatedly cited for unsafe mining conditions. People have likened the...

As the November 2 elections approach, one thing is certain: people-centered nonprofit organizations will be glad when they are over!

America's multibillion dollar electoral process absorbs people's and business' discretionary funds which might otherwise go to community, national and international programs. Every two years, our increasingly money-driven elections cause us...

Bleary-eyed off a flight back to L.A. from China, I received a late-night call from from America's leading refugee advocate, Lionel Rosenblatt, recently retired from a 40-year career at the US State Department and later his NGO, Refugees International, where far less heralded than he should be, Lionel led both...

First the good news: Bill and Hillary Clinton are intellectually and emotionally fully engaged in global humanitarian aid, often with perfect pitch. (I attended the Bill and Hill show on March 31st at the United Nations Donors Conference on Haiti -- and they ruled the United Nations on that day...even...

It's no secret that Americans not of South Asian descent are hesitant about providing any more money for use in Pakistan. But humanitarian aid provided to a country with 20 million persons (over half under age 15) affected by unprecedented flooding; with an active and deadly insurgency aimed at toppling...