The Charity Olympics

By Josh Tyrangiel

Whether it was intended to help the homeless or cure cancer, donating money to charity before Sept. 11 was a form of absolution. Letters came in, people wrote checks, and they felt better. Since then, more than $1 billion has been pledged and $631 million collected to aid those affected by the terrorist attacks. In addition to being the largest in American history, the philanthropic effort also marks the first time in recent memory that Americans donated not as a way out but a way in. While estimates of those in need of direct relief range from 10,000 to 25,000, the entire nation was wounded; people gave not till it hurt but because they hurt. Now, justifiably, they want to know: Where is that money going?

As of last Friday, $153 million had been handed out, $61 million in direct aid to families. But those figures only begin to tell the story. Individually, a few charities have thrived by finding a specific need and working feverishly toward meeting it. But as a whole, the relief effort--composed of 190 charities--has too often resembled a straggling army of compassion, bogged down by the obstinacy of the American Red Cross, a lack of focus by other charities and general confusion about how to reach out to those in need.

Starting on Sept. 12, folks ranging from Eliot Spitzer, the attorney general of New York, to Nancy Anthony, executive director of the Oklahoma City Community Foundation, urged all agencies participating in the relief effort to coordinate their work using a simple computer database. Spitzer said the database would help eliminate fraud; Anthony, who oversaw the Oklahoma City bombing relief effort, noted that "a database deals with the potential fraud issue, but it also allows someone to go in and say, 'Who hasn't been served yet?' People are very different in their responses to tragedy. Some reach out immediately for assistance, others become very withdrawn. They'll sit at home and go broke or crazy before they'll reach out."

Most charities instantly agreed that databasing was logical. The significant holdout was the American Red Cross. Dr. Bernadine Healy cited a strict organizational policy against sharing victim information because of privacy concerns. Spitzer countered that the database would be overseen by an independent accounting firm, not a government agency, and would be confidential. Healy wouldn't budge, and last Friday she was forced out by her own board.

Healy's stubbornness on databasing was not the only controversy. Within philanthropic circles, there were questions about whether an organization that, by congressional charter, is the lead immediate disaster-relief agency was equipped to offer the extended victim assistance that was likely to mark the secondary phase of the relief effort. Fund raising was an issue too. On Sept. 12, Healy taped her ubiquitous "Together, we can save a life" public-service announcement requesting blood and money for the Red Cross's newly established Liberty Fund. The PSAs were spectacularly successful; $505 million rolled into the organizational coffers, about half the total relief-effort sum, and an immeasurable amount of blood was given as well. But experts questioned the wisdom of calling for mass blood donation when the attacks had left astoundingly few blood recipients. (Indeed, last week the Red Cross announced that 10% of the red blood cells collected on Sept. 11 and 12 had expired.) By early October, local Red Cross chapters wondered if the national aggressive Liberty Fund campaign was costing them at the grass roots. A letter sent by the CEO of the Denver Red Cross chapter to a top national official, obtained by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, asked, "How much money can we 'take' before the well dries up?"

When the Red Cross finally released an itemized spending plan for the first $300 million in the Liberty Fund on Oct. 12, less than 50% of the money raised was targeted for victims of Sept. 11, their families or rescue workers. The rest was destined to help the Red Cross improve its own organization and "expand into new programs of aid" that might arise from future terrorism. But donors expected their money to be helping now, and some New York officials were considering blasting Healy over this publicly. They didn't need to. Last Friday, in a defiant farewell, she announced her retirement. "I had no choice," she said, volunteering the information that the organization's board had pushed her out.

With Healy's abdication, the Red Cross is expected to finalize an agreement with Spitzer this week that will make the agency full partners in an independently overseen charity database. (It will also shift the tone of its PSA campaign from fund raising to thanking the American people and explaining the goals of the Liberty Fund.) By following the example of Oklahoma City, many charity officials believe the database could be made even more effective if it were coupled with a critical second step: the assignment of a caseworker to each person seeking aid.

The Family Assistance Center at New York City's Pier 94 is the main facility for victims and families registering for assistance. Currently, when people enter the roughly 100,000-sq.-ft. building, they check in at a reception desk staffed by the N.Y.P.D. and are handed a badge that declares their status--FAMILY if they lost a family member, SUPPORT if they are a displaced worker or tenant. If people happen to be the relatives of a fire fighter or a police officer, they are escorted through the various agency cubicles by a member of those departments. Otherwise, they are handed a checklist of agencies and sent off to navigate the maze alone.

Individual caseworkers for up to 25,000 people may seem impractical, but one organization that's amenable to taking on at least part of the burden is Manhattan-based Safe Horizon. With 800 employees, it is the largest victim-assistance organization in the country. To date, Safe Horizon has given 11,280 people checks averaging about $900, most of them written on the spot. It is widely viewed as one of the relief effort's most effective agencies. After targeting a need--short-term funding for people who lived and worked near ground zero--Safe Horizon's CEO Gordon Campbell approached the September 11th Fund, an arm of the United Way and New York Community Trust, which had $150 million from the Tribute to Heroes telethon but no specific mission. The fund administrators were thrilled to pour money into an organization with a goal and support staff already in place. "We now have a revolving fund that they replenish," says Campbell. "We keep going back there every four days to ask for money."

To prevent turf wars and overlap, some charities have begun clustering together by need. Funds for mental health, scholarships and the various fire-fighter and police funds have all made inroads by divvying up territory and working together. But far too many still don't know the territory. The N.Y.P.D. says 4,136 people are dead or missing; the New York Times estimate is 2,950. Whichever figure turns out to be closer to the truth, the real problem is that traffic at local assistance centers is tapering off. That's why some charities are actually thrilled to hear those in need on talk-radio broadcasts complaining about not receiving aid. At least that way the charities can find them. "We can do all we can to spread the word, but we need those people we're trying to help to tell us they exist," says Jon Boroshok, spokesman for the Twin Towers Orphan Fund, which offers scholarship money to children who lost parents in the disaster.

Other funds are just now putting their machinery in motion. Joshua Gotbaum, former executive associate director and controller of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, and Franklin Thomas, a former Ford Foundation president, were named CEO and chairman, respectively, of the September 11th Fund just two weeks ago. Now they have to figure out how to best spend $320 million. "Our board hasn't even met yet," says Thomas, when asked about the September 11th Fund's future goals.

The reality is, money of that magnitude doesn't move very fast. And charities don't want to spend it all at once: many want to be there for long-term needs that neither they nor those they are helping can imagine. In Oklahoma City, a cameraman walked into the Community Foundation offices six years after the bombing and asked for counseling. Saving money for such causes may not meet with the public hunger for immediate relief, but no one would argue that it's money wasted. Still, Spitzer believes that "since the charities have received so much money, they have an obligation to do this thoughtfully, but also rather quickly. People have a right to see exactly how their money is going to be spent." The clock is ticking.