More than $239-million has been raised by disaster-relief organizations responding to last week's terrorist attacks in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, with tens of millions of dollars raised via the Internet.
As of noon Wednesday, Eastern time, the American Red Cross had raised a total of $129-million. Before the attacks, the charity had had $34-million in its disaster-relief fund. Internet donors have contributed a total of $46-million to the organization. In addition to making gifts through the Red Cross's Web site, people are also able to make donations to the charity through the Amazon.com, AOL Time Warner, PayPal.com, Wells Fargo Bank, and Yahoo Web sites.
Donations totaling $11-million came in through Red Cross's toll-free telephone number. Pledges made by corporations and foundations make up the remaining $72-million.
Devorah Goldburg, a Red Cross spokeswoman, says it is hard to put the sum raised for this disaster in context with others that the organization has dealt with.
"The magnitude of this disaster was unprecedented," she says. "You can't really compare it to a hurricane. It's apples to oranges as far as I'm concerned."
Ms. Goldburg also says it is too early to estimate how much money the Red Cross will need to raise to deal with the aftereffects of last week's attacks.
The Salvation Army estimates that it has raised almost $20-million. Theresa Whitefield the group's national media director, said that the exact figure is difficult to pin down at this point because each of the charity's four territories is conducting its own fund-raising efforts.
Catholic Charities USA has raised about $1-million. In the first seven days after the attacks, $200,000 came in through the organization's Web site, which is six times the charity's normal volume. Another $375,000 was donated via Catholic Charities' toll-free telephone number.
The rest has come in through the mail, says John Keightley, vice president for development and communications. Between 600 and 700 pieces of mail have arrived at the charity's mail center, which has fallen behind in processing the higher-than-normal number of gifts and letters of support.
Mr. Keightley says that Catholic Charities won't be able to estimate how much money it will need to respond to the disaster until its affiliates assess exactly what the needs will be.
He believes that the need for grief counseling will be great, not just for families and friends of victims, but "even just for people who have been glued to their television sets and who are trying to process this." The affiliates are also considering whether to offer tolerance and anger-management programs in the schools.
He expects that social-service organizations in some regions will see greater demand for emergency food and cash assistance due to economic hardships caused by the disaster.
Gifts are also coming in to special funds that have been set up to assist the victims of the disaster. The September 11th Fund, created by the New York Community Trust and United Way of New York City, has raised $89-million, with online contributions totaling more than $7.6-million.
After raising more than $57-million for relief efforts through their own Web sites, six Internet companies -- Amazon.com, AOL Time Warner, Cisco Systems, eBay, Microsoft, and Yahoo -- joined together to form the American Liberty Partnership. President Bush announced the creation of the partnership's Liberty Unites Web site in a White House ceremony in the Rose Garden on Tuesday morning.
Ebay has also started Auction for America, an online benefit auction with the goal of raising $100-million in 100 days, which is being run separately from the American Liberty Partnership project. Both individuals and companies can contribute items to the auction. Ebay has waived its listing fees and commissions for any item sold as part of the auction. Several banks and credit-card companies have also waived credit-card processing fees for purchases made as part of the auction.
The September 11th Fund will be the auction's primary beneficiary. Jim Griffith, spokesperson for eBay, says that in the first 24 hours after the auction's official launch, the number of items included in the auction jumped from 5,000 to 15,000. Later this week, eBay will add sports memorabilia items that have been donated by New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and New York Gov. George Pataki.