Can People Still Afford to Care?

Operation USA, a small, highly respected Los Angeles-based international relief agency (www.opusa.org) thought two weeks ago that its relief efforts in the triple disasters striking The Philippines, Samoa and Indonesia had finally tapped into the public's consciousness when it simultaneously was listed at the top of USA Today's list of charities responding to the disasters; was on Perez Hilton's website as his recommended relief group to support; had three posts published on HuffPost (one for each disaster); was covered by ABC's Los Angeles station, which came to the group's Port of Los Angeles warehouse to witness its preparation of relief supplies; and, was one of only two relief groups recommended on a blast e-mail from GOP Chairman Michael Steele advising on how to help American Samoa. Operation USA also emailed its own donor list asking for help.

After a full week, the results were in. Just $7,700 was contributed online. This compares with over $1 million donated online within 24 hours in 2004 after the Asia Tsunami.

Operation USA also collects bulk donations of medical and other relief supplies from long-time corporate donors and those amounted to just over $500,000 in product donations in the past three weeks. For the Asia Tsunami, the figures exceeded $10 million.

Being part of the larger relief community, Operation USA's experience was in large part mirrored by other nonprofit groups as far as private funds are concerned. Unlike Operation USA, however, the vast majority of established international relief agencies are also funded by the US Government and can fall back on whatever aid Congress and the Administration decide to give to cope with certain disasters. If private donations are down, they can rely on taxpayer funds to initiate their relief efforts. (There are no non-military US Government relief workers, so nonprofit groups accepting US Government funding implement US Government aid or other foreign policy objectives, which can be fine in Samoa but often troubling in Iraq or Afghanistan.)

What's going on here is that the empirical evidence of the effects of the US and the global recession has come home to roost. One nonprofit chief executive, Jonathan Estrin of the Constitutional Rights Foundation, opined recently that he believes as many as 30% of US nonprofits will fail or be forced to merge with financially stronger organizations in order to continue their humanitarian, educational, peace-making, cultural, faith-based or other activities. As there are well over 700,000 US nonprofit entities, even if Estrin is off by half, over 100,000 groups providing services to Americans and their neighbors, will cease to do so.

This graphically illustrates our economic crisis and the growing crises of both self-confidence in one's economic future and a growing reluctance to give to those whose mission is to help others. That makes which charity to give to ever more important. It's essential to do your own research since, if you can read through HuffPost, you can certainly pull up any charity's website and also Google what others say about the group. While it's true that any clever charlatan can pay to have a slick website designed for them and collect money from the uninformed, HuffPost readers should look at watchdog groups like Charity Navigator and Guidestar as well as discuss with friends, family and co-workers what their experience has been with particular charities.

Give and it gets there is a useful guideline to follow in choosing whom to entrust your shrinking treasure to.

 

 

Follow Richard Walden on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Rwalden63

Comments

[dragonfly2x]

well this article says to me that is was the little folks who were doing most of the donating in past years... you know the 95% of us who make up only 5% of the nations overall wealth...

screams to me that the 1% who control 95% of our nations wealth are pretty damn stingy... they are dumping their hamptons homes and multi million dollar estates, and think they have it rough?

if charitable donations are down that low, and were coming from most of us working joes, then that has to say something about where we are financiall­y...

So it seems, the "have it alls" are keeping it to themselves­... poor things....

NICE... wonder how many bux Cindy & John McCain with their untold number of homes have donated to Charity this year??? Romney? Trump? Oprah? The list from Huffpo yesterday of the m/billionaire Ceo's ,the list of Europes billionaires a few days ago...and the million and billionaires list goes on... WHERE ARE THEY when it comes to donating to world charities and disasters??? $7k is NOTHING to one of them... except maybe a shopping spree...

[dragonfly2x]

I'd give if I had it, and in 2004 things were much different for alot of us... but for the uber rich, little has changed... they CAN help but obviously aren't...

says alot to me about who in this country has real heart...

I had a friend who barely made his bills each month, but when it came to the annual food drive every year, Don's donation was always the largest in the neighborho­od... he didn't have much, but he gave ALOT to his community.­.. too `bad the richest in our nation don't have the same heart...

I know alot of them donate (uber rich), and many for the ~tax deduction~ but seems to me they don't make the lions share in most instances.­.. the working joes seem to really fill the coffers...

I guess The Philippines, Samoa and Indonesia need to make their plea to the million/billionaire crowd this go round... we littlekins are just hangin on by the skin of our teeth this year...

[refah]

Why not stop charitable giving as individuals. Bring on some of that "trickle down." heh,heh

[RichardWalden]

In fact, Operation USA reports never in 30 years having received funds from Goldman-Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup, AIG or any other finncial institutions. The health care products companies, industrial giants and transportation companies support Operation USA and other NGOs generously as in better times does the general public, but not those companies whose services deal only in money and "wealth creation". Their types don't give unless they are funding something with their name on it like a building at a New York museum or cultural institution. That kind of giving is all about ego and not about compassion.

[sixyfivepercentwater]

When economic times are tough, charitable giving stops. Well, um. . .duh.

Does that mean Americans don't care about people in need? Only if you believe that when they gave money in the past it meant they cared.

I don't believe the dip in charitable contributions means that people care less now than they used to. I think it means they have less discretionary income than they used to, and/or that they now have a good enough excuse for not giving that they don't feel guilty about refusing.

[CDarwin]

How about contacting Goldman-Sachs, Bank of America, Citgroup, JP Morgan Chase, and AIG? That's where America's money is.

[PlaceboStudman]

Sadly, no, it appears that the American population for the most part can't afford to care. Most people are too paralyzed with fear in getting their own affairs together that they can't spare a penny, or a good deed or a kind word to anyone else.

Don't destroy me. There are, of course, exceptions. But, for the most part, we have turned into a world of "me, me, me"

[sixyfivepercentwater]

Forget pennies, good deeds and kind words: Most people can't spare even a thought for anyone else. They're too wrapped up in their pretend worlds to know others even exist.