Opinion Blog : Entries Tagged With 'disaster+relief'
| May 27, 2008 03:30 AM |
A New Way to Respond to Natural DisastersThere are two approaches to advocating international development: the old (international aid = top-down) and the new (market-driven = bottom-up). At the end of the day, international development calls for a combination of the two; yet the old approach – world bank, government-run programs, international NGOs, etc.— is still far too prominent. The good news is that the pendulum is swinging; Kiva, for instance, might turn out to be the World Bank of the 21st century. IDE Myanmar has been a quiet but compelling leader in the new market-driven approach. IDE and organizations such as Kick Start have successfully lifted hundreds of thousands of farmers out of poverty on a relatively small budget. I predict that one of the leaders of these organizations is likely to win the Noble Peace Prize in the next decade. Their success hinges on their ability to build reliable distribution channels while manufacturing and marketing products their customers really want and need. As a Stanford graduate student, I have been fortunate enough to work with IDE Myanmar over the last three months to design an affordable rice thresher, which will be introduced to Burmese rice farmers within the next year. It’s been a wonderful experience, throughout which I’ve been thoroughly impressed by IDE Myanmar and its compassionate capitalist culture (business-like, but driven by mission). I want to get people thinking about better practices in disaster relief. IDE Myanmar has emerged heroically in the aftermath of Cycle Nargis. IDE has no political agenda, and over the years has convinced the regime that it is solely interested in market-driven development. IDE is one of the only foreign organizations that has permission to operate freely in the affected region. I won’t get into the depth of the humanitarian disaster, but it is unbearable to think about the misery of the country’s 60 million citizens. IDE is successful because it is locally based and has the distribution channels, manufacturing capacity, operations expertise, product design capacity, and social mission. IDE reaches 25,000 victims every day, helping to satisfy their basic needs of water, food, and shelter. For example, IDE figured out how to combine three of its products, the WaterPump, WaterBasket, and WaterGuard ($40 for a combo package), to bring clean drinking water to 145,000people per week. IDE Myanmar never thought about these issues before the cyclone. Instead, its daily operations were geared toward commerce: selling low-cost farming products through a nationwide retail channel. Even though that was a far cry from emergency aid work, IDE transformed literally overnight. Katrina, Asian tsunami, Nargis, and most recently the Sichuan earthquake: natural disasters seem to occur every week and clearly nobody knows how to respond effectively. It is not a question of money. Most critics are upset with the institutions in place (think FEMA) but do not offer any realistic solutions. We should take a hint from IDE’s successes in Myanmar and support market-orientated nonprofit organizations, or social-mission-orientated, for-profit companies, playing a more prominent role. Governments and international aid agencies should respond, but they should also let local organizations have the protagonist role whenever they deserve it. Just as the new approach to international development has increasingly become bottom-up, so should disaster relief efforts. Do you agree? How would you incorporate the IDE Myanmars of the world into the relief system?
Posted by Katie Harrington
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| May 5, 2009 11:25 AM |
Swine Flu: Why Local Organizations MatterThe “Swine Flu” scare was fun, wasn’t it? No, it really wasn’t; but it did give most of the world a chance to react in real-time to what could have been much worse. In a recent Op-Ed piece in the New York Times, David Brooks compared the global response vs localized response to the outbreak. I think this comparison, and context, is a great example of why local (read: non-global) organizations are still key in social change work, and why we need to be building stronger networks for data and information sharing. Power to the People Let’s consider this example in comparison to a generic sector, focusing on a global issue, like the environmental & climate sector working on climate change. Creating a huge umbrella organization is just not going to happen realistically for any sector, at least one with the governing and implementing power suggested above. Instead, we want to keep the power to address issues in the hands of organizations spread around the world. It is impossible for one organization to know the stories, issues, culture and decision-making information of all locations. It’s hard enough to master one geography! Speak the Local Language In the climate change example, this means that we can brand, communicate, and distribute information, calls to action, and important opportunities for engagement in a way that encourages response locally. The missing link, though, is that the underlying opportunity (whether it is a petition to sign, an online or offline event, or anything else) needs to be networked across all the organization. The effect of having all organizations gather signatures on the same petition versus hundreds creating and distributing their own petitions for the same issue is huge. Innovate and Reiterate This, again, holds true for organizations working on social change issues. New messages, campaigns, and strategies can be tested, deployed, and analyzed in separate groups. What makes this more powerful? Leveraging a networked system so that when a new campaign works, or better yet - doesn’t work, that information can be shared in real time with all of the other organizations. This means the “what works” can get implemented faster in other places and the “what doesn’t” can be cut out of the loop without more wasted capacity. Great, Now What? What do you think? What kind of tools would we need to accomplish this? What push backs or culture shocks to working in this way would need to be overcome? Where would you start?
Posted by Kelsey Walker
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| January 26, 2010 09:58 AM |
How to Help HaitiKey Points • It is important to figure out why you want to donate to Haiti and what you hope your donation will accomplish.
While which nonprofit you fund has important implications, figuring out what you’re trying to accomplish in the first place is critical. So let’s look at how a donor might think about the role they want to play. First off, we need to understand that while the Haitian earthquake has its own unique issues, it is a disaster relief scenario which means we can learn from other similar situations. Tim Ogden had this advice in the Harvard Business Review:
I don’t mean to suggest that donors should not send cash now to help in the relief effort. But it is important for donors to realize that doing so is not the only option. The fact is, the Haitian earthquake is just as much a poverty issue as it is a natural disaster as David Brooks pointed out in the New York Times:
What this suggests is that donors should consider whether providing support for long term rebuilding in Haiti (or other areas) makes sense for them or whether they might look at disaster preparedness as a cause they want to support. The point here is that the Haitian earthquake is not a simple story. There are many underlying issues and donors should give some thought to what it is about the event that moves them to give. The charity evaluation group GiveWell wrote a post over a year ago title The Case Against Disaster Relief in which they looked at how disaster relief is not a particularly cost-effective use of a donor’s gift and why disaster preparedness might be better. But even if this is true, the world needs high performing disaster relief organizations. So donors who want to support the urgent relief efforts would be well served to make an unrestricted gift to an organization that can use the funds now in Haiti and also use them to grow and improve their organization so they are ready to help when the next disaster strikes. While there are a number of organizations that are viable options for a donor who wants to support disaster relief, we would recommend that donors consider Partners in Health (PIH). PIH is a community-based health care provider that works with poor people in developing countries. Their flagship project is located in Haiti and is one of the largest nongovernmental health care providers in the country. Partners in Health has received large grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and is recommended by GiveWell and The Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the University of Pennsylvania (as well as many other reputable sources). PIH was co-founded by Paul Farmer, a bit of a rock star in the development world, was widely expected to be nominated to run USAID and many people thought was the best pick for the job. One of the advantages of supporting PIH is that they are on the ground in Haiti now and can deploy your donation towards near tern relief work and for the long term support of health care needs in Haiti and other poverty stricken, developing nations. While donor’s hearts may go out to Haiti today, when an earthquake next strikes an impoverished nation it is critical that groups like Partners for Health are in top operating condition and ready to help. We believe that good philanthropy is a product of having a good plan in place and fully understanding what you are trying to achieve. Which nonprofits you support is of course important, but that question can only be answered once you realize what you are trying to accomplish.
Posted by Samantha Penabad
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| February 1, 2010 09:15 AM |
Haiti Relief Underscores Deeper NeedsWhile Americans quickly dug deep to support relief efforts in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti, the outpouring of generosity also serves as a troubling reminder of our ongoing failure to better address social and global needs that are urgent, persistent and deeply rooted. Just as they did after 9/11, Katrina and the Asian tsunamis, individuals, companies and foundations after the Haiti quake have done what Americans do best in times of crisis: They got involved and gave. What we often seem to forget, however, is that we face a perpetual crisis, one the recession simply has deepened. At home and abroad, millions are hungry, homeless, in poor health, impoverished, illiterate, and subjected to violence and intolerance. The giving sector exists in large part to address the problems vulnerable populations face. But among the nearly one million charities in the U.S., many struggle with limited resources and big operating challenges. Individuals, foundations and companies in the U.S. give over $300 billion a year to support charities, and often give more after horrific events like the quake in Haiti. But the charitable marketplace has changed dramatically in recent years in the wake of financial and ethical scandals and the collapse of the economy. Many foundations and corporations have narrowed the focus of their giving, and are demanding more business-like operations from charities seeking support. Those funders want nonprofits to be more strategic, set measurable goals, create clear metrics to gauge their impact and effectiveness, and make their staffs and boards more diverse and inclusive. These all are important goals: To address critical needs, nonprofits must be able to sustain themselves financially and engage the thinking and know-how of the full spectrum of people and institutions with a stake in making our communities better places to live and work. But in placing greater demands on charities and ratcheting up expectations for how they perform, many funders seem to be in denial about the investment charities need to meet those demands and expectations. Most charities are small, community-based groups with limited resources. Their boards often are not willing to raise money or set a vision and direction for the organization, and typically are not even aware those are key responsibilities of their board role. The recession has increased demand for services from charities and reduced the dollars available to them in what has become a fiercely competitive charitable marketplace. And foundations and corporations typically will not support charitable operations, preferring to fund special projects and address particular needs in sync with their mission or business goals. So while they expect charities to be more enterprising, efficient, effective and strategic, funders are not willing to make the significant investment charities need to improve the way they do business. After the Haiti earthquake, savvy charities used social-media strategies like text-messaging to raise a lot of money quickly. Aiding that effort was massive coverage by mass media that used the power of images and technology to communicate both the intimacy and the massive scale of devastation in a nation long ground down by poverty. Yet while they are quick to provide wall-to-wall coverage of horrific disasters in their immediate wake, the media fail to tell the ongoing story of the relentless toll poverty takes throughout America and the world. And while nonprofits serve on the front lines in the fight against poverty, their limited resources make it tough for them to more effectively tell their story to the mass audience mass media can reach. Nonprofits need all the help they can get, including greater understanding and flexibility among foundations and corporations that control charitable resources nonprofits can use to do a better job running their organizations, serving people in need, and telling their stories to engage more people in their cause.
Posted by Samantha Penabad
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| February 28, 2010 10:32 AM |
A Revolution in Foundation Transparency“We think the foundation should have glass pockets.” – Russell Leffingwell, Chair, Carnegie Corporation, 1952 Hot on the heels of rolling out real time tracking of foundation grants in support of Haiti, the Foundation Center has quietly launched a new project with the whimsical name Glass Pockets. With a mission to “bring transparency to the world of philanthropy” Glass Pockets offers reports on how transparent large, well known foundations are. These reports rate the foundations across 28 elements of transparency and accountability such as whether they explain their grantmaking process, provide a public assessment of the foundation’s performance and whether they offer a knowledge center that shares program evaluations and lessons learned. You can currently find reports for a number of large foundations including:
Most importantly, the reports offer direct click-thru access to each element. So users can quickly find the Gates Foundation’s investment policies, the Ford Foundation’s grantmaking policy, or the Hewlett Foundation’s knowledge center. Glass Pockets also offers a fascinating Foundation Transparency 2.0 database that shows the social media tools being used by over 400 foundations. From the database you can directly access the Twitter feeds, Facebook pages, blogs, e-newsletters and other tools being used by some of the country’s largest funders. Finally, the site offers a Google-based search tool that lets users search the websites of thousands of private foundations. For instance, a search for the term Haiti brings back The Boston Foundation’s Haiti Relief & Reconstruction Fund, The Gates Foundation’s statement on their response to the earthquake and the Case Foundation’s blog post on ways that individual donors can support Haiti. This is fascinating stuff! Not only is Glass Pockets suddenly the most important way to access important information about foundations, but the reports begin to set a level of expectation for large, staffed foundations to share more about their activities and what they know with the public. For instance, the reports note that the Ford Foundation does not make its 990-PF available, the Kellogg Foundation does not have a mechanism in place to allow grantee feedback and none of the foundations listed above share an assessment of their own performance with the public. Talk about information overload. Glass Pockets offers users direct links to a deep library of information about foundations. I could get lost for days exploring this place!
Posted by Samantha Penabad
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| December 15, 2005 08:10 PM |
Hurricane relief not coming from large nonprofits“In the midst of the devastation, larger relief organizations like the Red Cross and Salvation Army have been scaling down their efforts. They still have warehouses of supplies but no efficient way to distribute them to people in the poor communities of the Gulf Coast, ” writes former SSIR managing editor, David Weir in Salon. “The Red Cross has already closed all of its shelters and the Salvation Army plans to stop its meal service before Christmas.” In contrast, David writes, “Hands On USA volunteers are helping East Biloxi residents manage such day-to-day chores as clearing debris from their houses, finding temporary shelter and seeking counseling.” Hurricane relief and the media that it attracts provides a golden opportunity for nonprofits - particularly large nonprofits who are under scrutiny from their donors and congress - to show that they can effectively and efficiently aid the needy. Why aren’t the Red Cross and Salvation Army then making a better showing? Posted by Perla Ni
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| December 15, 2005 08:14 PM |
Where’s the money?Two weeks ago, I visited the northern coast of Aceh, Indonesia, curious to see not only how people are faring one year after the tsunami, but also how NGOs are spending the largest pool of humanitarian funds ever raised. On both counts, my report is the same: Not well. After one day in Banda Aceh, I spent four more driving through the districts of Pidie and Bireun. Even the view from the highway bore witness to the ongoing suffering of the Acehnese. Where thriving marketplaces and traditional houses once stood, tent cities and government-built barracks spread. The skeletons of washed-up boats and cars still sit on the roads’ shoulders as far as two miles inland. Schools are boarded up. Fishing ponds bleed into each other and into the sea. Even in Banda Aceh, the province’s proud capital, 50% of the surviving population is still homeless. In rural villages, that number climbs to 70%. When is more help coming? I didn’t know what to tell the village chiefs or the boat builders or my generous hosts in Pente Rheng, Kiran Baroh, Beurembang, and Pasi Lhok. Their stories resembled each other: A flurry of NGOs hurried through their villages soon after the tsunami, asking questions, staking claims, making promises. And then the NGOs never returned. Or the NGOs did return, but only to replace demolished houses, not to repair the badly damaged ones. I heard about one NGO that refused to rebuild any schools in one village unless it could rebuild the most prominent ones, near the highway. The village agreed, retracting its agreement with a smaller organization that made simpler promises. The NGO nailed its logo to the schools, and hasn’t been seen since. I heard about another NGO that decided not to build until it has the materials and expertise to meet the highest European standards of earthquake readiness. The day I returned to Jakarta, an article the New York Times confirmed that many NGOs are indeed taking their time. In her article, “After Tsunami, a Rarity: Donated Dollars Remain,” Stephanie Strom reports that NGOs are resisting pressures to spend-down their windfall, and instead are contemplating how to “build back better” with long-term investments in education, health care, and economic recovery. She also writes that NGOs are spending unprecedented amounts of time and money documenting and justifying their spending to donors. Oxfam, for example, has already spent $1.5 million of its $278 million on monitoring and evaluating its own performance. Many other organizations are likewise providing detailed breakdowns of how and where their money is spent. Meanwhile, it seemed to me that the Acehnese are stranded in a trough between the first wave of emergency aid and a second, promised wave of reconstruction funding. The tents in which many live were never intended to weather two monsoons, as their mold and holes attest. The camps are filthy with litter and the stink of raw sewage. Scabies is rampant. Without boats for fishing, yards for raising poultry, or ponds for farming seafood, the villagers must rely on the World Food Programme’s rations of rice and vegetable oil and sardines. But the rations are never quite enough. The children are skinnier, and not growing to be as tall as their older siblings. Health care is lacking for everyone because most of the medical teams left a few months after the tsunami. There are no squeaky wheels here. People mourn their dead in the Acehnese way, bearing their hardships quietly. A man who lost his wife, parents, and three children smiled and said, “I’m just trying to forget the past on move on.” But NGOs have the grease, and plenty. Are they withholding immediate aid so that they can optimize their long-term planning and donor relationships? Whose needs are being addressed by this strategy? Whose standards are being met? Which sufferings are being forestalled, and which are being exacerbated? Could NGOs do a better job of addressing both immediate needs and long-term goals? Alana Conner Posted by Perla Ni
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