The problem with giving money to charities is that you usually don’t know if they do a good job — how much bang for the buck you’ll be getting for your gift. This quandary grows big-time when a rapid emergency relief effort is required — such as the Japan disaster.
ANYTIME such a disaster occurs, charlatans pop up everywhere, seeking contributions. Indeed, these con men permeate the Internet seeking political cause donations as well. Caveat donor.
My friend Bruce Cowan and I have done a quick, superficial survey of relief organizations, trying to find charities that literally deliver the goods. I thought I would share our findings.
I must emphasize that this was NOT any study in depth. We did what most of us do in this day and age — went to Google.
I’m sure there are other charities out there that do as good or better a job than the outfits we settled on. We just grabbed a couple organizations that seemed to be good choices.
Fortunately, the free market results in a demand for such charity investigative services. One reputable provider of this rating comparison is http://www.charitynavigator.org.
The natural tendency of donors is to go with a big charity noted for providing such relief — and at the top of such a list would surely be the Red Cross. But the Red Cross has a bureaucracy to feed, so they rate only 3 stars in the Navigator 4 star system. Fairly good, but not great.
Bruce came up with Americares. It’s a 4 star disaster relief operation that seems to be made to order for such emergencies. Here’s the Navigator review URL:
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3289
I found a well-rated small San Diego-based outfit — International Relief Teams — that normally would be my preference.
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=5210
But here’s the problem: Japan is in turmoil. Getting to the disaster area is quite difficult. Furthermore, the Japanese government seems reluctant to accept foreign personnel to provide assistance on the ground.
I spoke to both charities and they seem to be largely stymied at this time. Hence it appears that, for the moment, both groups are not able to provide direct, meaningful assistance in Japan.
It seems to me that, for now, the Red Cross is the best choice. But I decided to donate DIRECTLY to the Japanese Red Cross, rather than funneling money through the American Red Cross to their Japanese affiliate.
That’s a bit harder than you would think. The Japanese Red Cross website is either down, or does not have an English version.
But again, Google to the rescue. Google has set up a special donation web page where you can give directly to the the Japanese Red Cross. A minor disadvantage is that you have to use a credit card, but it certainly seems to be a secure website. I don’t like paying cc charges to make donations, but this seems to be the best and fastest way to contribute.
http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html
If you are more comfortable going through the American Red Cross for Japan efforts, here’s their link:
http://american.redcross.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ntld_main&s_src=RSG000000000&s_subsrc=RCO_BigRedButton
But note that it is not clear that the your money will indeed go to Japanese relief efforts — they have a disclaimer.
Finally, it’s only right that I include the case for NOT contributing to Japan’s relief efforts. Here’s a controversial blog item on Reuters — “Don’t Donate to Japan” to give you pause:
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/03/14/dont-donate-money-to-japan/#comment-24837
I hope this information is helpful.