Six months after the Haiti earthquake, much of the more than $1.3-billion in charitable donations to the devastated island remains in relief agencies’ coffers, according to NPR.
A survey of dozens of groups working in Haiti found that many still have substantial amounts of donated funds in the bank. The American Red Cross, which collected nearly $500-million for earthquake relief, has spent about a third of the money.
The Red Cross, like other groups, said it will be providing relief services in Haiti for several years and that it would not be prudent to spend all the money raised so far. Peter Walker, director of the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University, agreed, saying that given the level of devastation, using the donated money wisely “is actually quite difficult.”
A new report by the nonprofit Disaster Accountability Project faults humanitarian groups for a lack of transparency about their activities in Haiti, writes The New York Times.
Of nearly 200 groups that have solicited funds for Haiti, only six have made available regularly updated reports detailing their work, according to the report. Nearly two-thirds had no such reports on their Web sites, relying instead on anecdotal accounts of their activities and emotional appeals.
Read a Chronicle of Philanthropy article on the Haiti relief effort six months after the quake.
(Free registration is required to view the Times article.)
0 Responses to Hundreds of Millions in Haiti Donations Still Unspent
andreamc1111 - July 13, 2010 at 2:52 pm
If anyone actually stops to read the report, they will realize how irrelevant their data actually is. Of nearly 200 groups… 10% responded to them.
phanink - July 13, 2010 at 10:00 pm
If you actually stopped to read the report, you’d realize you’re only referring to one part of what they wrote about. The other half was research independent of survey responses from NGOs.
andreamc1111 - July 29, 2010 at 3:52 pm
You mean the research where they investigated what was on the NGOs websites and other publicly available information? So because they couldn’t find anything or full disclosure wasn’t just sitting on the website, that’s sufficient justification for this slant?Meanwhile, the responses from NGOs includes references to quarterly or otherwise scheduled reports – which according to this project, they generally couldn’t wait for. They have some pretty stringent deadlines for survey responses considering the amount of effort that is going into the Haiti Relief efforts and the amount of time since the disaster occurred.
bobbyvassallo - July 30, 2010 at 8:14 pm
“We are the World” raised almost $200 million, 25 years ago. Everyone complained it wasn’t spent fast enough. I question the data, and the people reporting it. Yes, emergency medical is a short term problem, typically, but redevelopment takes years. The bigger agencies need money for huge overheads, so they walk rather than run.The great charities are able to roll sleeves up and get to the projects. I love Charity Navigator because it allows me to look at charities before I donate. I learn how they think, quickly. Operation USA is one of my favorites. They are moving quickly, have no worries about overhead (because they are experts at keeping it way low) and spend mostly on deployment, as they have a huge donor base from drug and medical equipment companies who recognise how special they are. How smart you spend is much more important than how fast you spend. With overheads like Red Cross’ and other huge charities, you know why they aren’t spending as you’d likeBobby Vassallohttp://bobbyvassallo.org