How to Send Aid to Haiti
When the Haitian Earthquake news first broke, it appeared to be only minor damage. Since those reports, we have learned this was an enormously damaging quake, one that has wreaked havoc across the island nation.
The Red Cross is now estimating deaths at over 50,000 100,000. The State Department has set up a hotline for Americans to inquire after family in Haiti: 888-407-4747.
There are several worthwhile charities that allow you to donate money — these are some of the better ones I am familiar with:
To donate to specific relief efforts in Haiti:
You can also use your cell phone to make donations:
-To donate $10 to the American Red Cross, text Haiti to 90999. The amount will be added to your next phone bill. (You can always donate to the International Response Fund, www.redcross.org)).
-To donate $5 to Wyclef Jean’s Haitian Yele charity, text 501501. The money will be added to your next phone bill. You can also visit www.yele.org.
InterAction has a list of agencies responding and how to donate to them. You can also Find more ways to help through the Center for International Disaster Information.
Tweet
Facebook
Reddit
Digg this!
January 14th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
Time to also claw back Wall Street’s ill-gotten (stolen) bonus money and donate at least part of those proceeds to the Haiti rescue/recovery efforts.
January 14th, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Limbaugh said I already donated via payment of my federal taxes.
January 14th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Limbaugh’s a freaking jackass and classes lout. An embarrassment to the country.
January 14th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
That’s “classless”……..hasty in my anger at that idiot.
January 14th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
Thank you for posting the links. I just used one of them to make a donation.
January 14th, 2010 at 12:42 pm
Me too. Thanks, Barry.
January 14th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Ditto that.
January 14th, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Same here. Thanks for the links.
January 14th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
Sorry, but I don’t think the money that gets donated ever makes it to the victims involved…
~~~
BR: Thats the appeal of Doctors Without Borders - the vast majority of cash gets to where its applied
January 14th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
investorinpa-
especially in Haiti-
some churches and whatnot are actually going down there to offer “in person” first aid-
donating $$$$ or assistance to something like that would make sense
January 14th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
@investorinpa: It often depends on the organization, but I hear you what you’re saying. However, if we were all to believe this, then nobody would donate and nobody would get helped. I think that’s a far too cynical way to look at it, even for me.
January 14th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
@investorinpa:
http://www.charitynavigator.org/
One example is Partners in Health, well established in Haiti
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=4884
4 stars, 95% of all money goes towards operations.
January 14th, 2010 at 1:38 pm
Here are Haiti earthquake donation links for the United Church of Christ:
http://www.ucc.org/disaster/major-earthquake-strikes.html
https://secure3.convio.net/ucc/site/Donation2?df_id=1780&1780.donation=form1
In my experience the UCC folks are not too doctrinaire, and not greedy. YMMV.
January 14th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
The US military is sending 2000 servicemen/women and lots of supplies…..they’re on their way now and, as ahab said: some churches and service orgs are actually going down
January 14th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
I don’t mean to start a fight at a time like this but I do know quite a bit about international aid work. I don’t have depth info on all these groups but:
-Habitat for Humanity should be taken off the list. Never give them money.
-Doctors Without Borders has gotten political since the Nobel. That makes it a crapshoot on whether the political propaganda does more damage than the aid the doctors give.
-CARE and the Red Cross are consistently mediocre but on large-scale single location like this one is where they’re at there best. I’d recommend them of the one’s on the list I’m familiar with, which is most of them.
~~~
BR: Done on Habitat for Humanity
I have a doc friend who does a stint with Doctors Without Borders for 2 weeks every year — he never asks for money, but if anyone asks him what DWB is like, by the time hes halfway thru describing their work, without him even asking you are reaching for the check book. Just astonishing.
January 14th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
If you want to evaluate a charity, there are numerous websites that review how efficient various charities are at fulfilling their missions
Check out:
Give Well highly rates Partners in Health, and Charity Navigator rates highly Doctors Without Borders
January 14th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
BTW
Established Church projects that are local before a disaster are a good place to throw private money right after a disaster.
I’m not a churchgoer and I’m a cynic but doing work on the ground has shown me this is your best return on donations of say less than 50k
January 14th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
Barry – Thank you for this. I had the good fortune to spend time in Haiti in the mid-80s. I would encourage everyone to help in whatever way they can.
Haitians are wonderful people, born into the most unfortunate circumstances (some of which the Cold-War era US turned a blind eye to, as long as the dictatorship played nice with us.)
January 14th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
I admit I’m about 3 year out of date with Charity Navigator but they never seem to give bad rating, it’s exactly like a rating agency.
It’s one of the first places you should go when checking out a charity but the second thing you should do is read the charities annual.
Research it like an investment and understand that non-profits have messy books because of all the ways donations can be valued and currency issues where they do work.
One of my favorite groups is from southern California and sends donated medical supplies all over the world. They have given out more than 100% of what they take in for years, and they’re books are totally legit, it’s hard to wrap your head around if you’re an investor. Reading Non profit financials is a whole new skill to develop.
January 14th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Barry,
Just make a post appealing to Bernanke and Tim. They got 200K e-Mini contracts to spare that are already in-the-money from yesterday spike.
Those $5/$10 just don’t add up to Timmy and Benny buttons. Seriously.
January 14th, 2010 at 2:16 pm
Catholic Relief Services: http://www.crs.org/
Or, give at church this weekend. Likely a 2nd collection.
January 14th, 2010 at 2:18 pm
Barry,
Give Well was just getting started when I was phasing out the development work I was doing. Thanks for the link I had forgotten about them.
January 14th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
GiveWell will give you the deeper analysis on individual charities. Check out http://www.givewell.net/ .
Here’s a GiveWell blog entry on disaster relief, with links providing context vs. the Burma cyclone relief effort, and a comparison with benefits of other kinds of giving.
http://blog.givewell.net/2010/01/13/haiti-earthquake-donations/
January 14th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
Also http://www.medshare.org/
is highly rated
January 14th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
Thanks Barry,
Now this is one I never would have found and which I just donated to after some quick research. Very easy to donate on the Yele site.
-To donate $5 to Wyclef Jean’s Haitian Yele charity, text 501501. The money will be added to your next phone bill. You can also visit http://www.yele.org.
January 14th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
@WW: Just did the text donation. Very easy. You can do it up to 6x. Thank you.
January 14th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
Hey Barry, I’ve worked with PremiumSMS (charge-by-SMS) operators in many scales and many different projects and if there is one constant it is that less than 70% of the charge will make it to the payee. For most shortcodes you are looking at 35% over-head, standard. They don’t often give discounts to charity, and if they do, they are tiny because there is so many middle men in this business. Giving by CC or EFT is likely to get much, much more of your donation to the organizations that need it.
January 14th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Another good charity is International Relief Teams. http://www.irteams.org. Charity Navigator says 99% going to services and not overhead.
January 14th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Those who don’t want to give money can also pray, so as to help free the Haitians from their enslavement to Satan (http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201001130024). That the Haitians made a pact with the devil isn’t a new idea, by the way. My cousin, who works for the National Security Agency as a computer specialists when he isn’t busy with his Operation Rescue protests, explained this all to me 20 years ago.
January 14th, 2010 at 5:19 pm
Thanks for posting this Barry.
January 14th, 2010 at 10:04 pm
Can’t let Bonzo the Bozo’s comment go unanswered.
Haiti is the first (only?) slave colony to unshackle itself from its slavemasters. Since then it has battled attempts at extermination (ever heard of General Rochambeau?) and persistent oppression,and has evolved into the basket case we know today.
For what it’s worth I think Partners in Health is by far the biggest bang for the buck value.
Maybe your cousin should spend less time harassing doctors with Operation Rescue and take in a foster kid instead.
January 15th, 2010 at 12:53 am
That story about a pact with the devil is totally fabricated and racist. This Pat Adolf Robertson has a huge foot in his mouth, desperately in need of media attention. Here in Canada, we have laws against racism and intolerance at all levels. He could be brought to justice or be forced to present his excuses in public. Its a shame that CNN needs to put that kind of imbecility at the frontpage of their website.
I gave to the Center For International Studies And Cooperation (Centre d’Étude et de Coopération Internationale) http://www.ceci.ca/ceci/en/index.html
because one of its porte-parole is Luck Mervil, a well known quebec-haitian singer here in Montreal. I was at his last concert with electric guitarist virtuoso Michel Cusson and female singer Terez Montcalm, quite amazing artists. I was very impressed with Luck Mervil’s lyrics in the song Soleil Noir.
I hope that Obama sends more troops quickly to put more man power to remove survivors from the collapsed buildings and houses. The first 5 days are critical, and I know my money will only help much later than that.
January 15th, 2010 at 3:38 am
They have a huge problem to receive the massive help, the airport is unable to receive more planes because already too many planes on the ground and they don’t have fuel to refill the planes. The port is destroyed and can’t receive big ships. A lot of roads are damaged or filled with people afraid of buildings.
There’s a huge crowd trying to get in the airport to get out of the country.
I hope some logistics engineers get there quickly, lots of helicopters would help, but time is running out for many people, the articles I just read are unbelievably horrible.
January 15th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
90 helicopters are now there courtesy Uncle Sam. Nearby airports and seaports in ther Dom. Rep. and elsewhere are being utilized to facilitate supply distribution.
But yes- there is a serious, serious pinchpoint problem with both the airport and seaport- both badly damaged.
January 15th, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Make that 19 helicopters. http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/15/haiti.earthquake/?hpt=Sbin
January 16th, 2010 at 5:49 am
[...] On Thursday, we reviewed the many ways to Send Aid to Haiti. [...]
January 17th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
After all our talk, we look kind of funny donating to Yele now. We’ll see if he steps up. Good thing is that sites like this also passed on negative info faster than an non-profit industry player would have.
January 17th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
Barry,
My comment on Doctors Without Borders needed to be balanced out by a comment like your follow up. They do great work on the ground but need to be carefull of entering political fights. Again I’m 3 years out from work in the field so I hope they’ve gotten that under control.
Their on site single day inoculation set ups are something I tell people about, 15 years ago they we’re the standard. Staggering number of kids can go through them.
January 18th, 2010 at 6:23 am
[...] here and here. [...]