Humanitarian and International Development NGOs

So, questions still remain about the ability of the U.S. disaster relief system to handle a large-scale catastrophe.  What can we do?

(1) Develop a national disaster relief fund

With such a fund, private contributions for relief and recovery would be collected and distributed by an independent entity, with independent oversight, whose sole purpose is to find and support the organizations - local or national, small or large - that are responding most effectively in a specific disaster.  My preference would be to have all response agencies, including the American Red Cross and the national VOAD agencies, commit to and benefit from such a fund.  This means that the national agencies would throw their support behind a collective fund raising effort after a disaster, similar to the joint appeals by international NGOs that are so successful in other countries, rather than undertaking their own individual campaigns.  This could:

• Improve response by allowing organizations during the height of the crisis to focus on providing services rather than raising funds
• Reduce administrative costs significantly within the field by streamlining fund raising
• Create a single, recognizable brand that simplifies donor decisions and offers an attractive partnership opportunity for media outlets, celebrities, and corporations while acknowledging that effective response requires supporting a diversity of nonprofits and faith-based groups.

Let’s be real - the bulk of the money from such a fund would likely still go to large, national organizations.  However, it would improve immeasurably the access that local organizations have to small private contributions, and if done correctly, should also significantly improve accountability.  If such a fund built a successful track record, I can envision it developing the reach and credibility to raise funds successfully between disasters to ensure an adequate reserve and fund preparedness programs (see #2…).

(2) Stimulate and support local, integrated disaster preparedness programs

Federal funding for disaster preparedness has been in steady decline at a time when we need it most.  Such programs should be expanded; should be focused at the local level; and should ensure that local nonprofits, faith-based groups, and the private sector are at the table when plans are created.

It’s time to resurrect  programs like Project Impact, which brought local nonprofits and businesses alongside government to develop and implement mitigation strategies.  Project Impact was widely credited with keeping damage and casualties to a minimum after the Seattle earthquake in 2001 that measured 6.8 on the Richter scale, yet was cut the same exact day by the president to save $25 million, a tiny percentage of FEMA’s base budget.

It’s time to perfect and take to scale programs like Operation Brother’s Keeper, a partnership between inner-city African-American churches and the New Orleans chapter of the American Red Cross meant to ensure that vulnerable community members were included in relief efforts during a major disaster.  Unfortunately the partnership  was in the early planning stages when Katrina hit.

We need hundreds of local, self-directed efforts like the promising multi-sector effort in San Francisco -  BayPrep - with the leadership of the mayor’s office behind it, and like the local VOADs - coalitions of local nonprofits and faith groups in dialogue with local emergency officials - that have sprung up in Louisiana through the leadership of the Louisiana Association of Nonprofit Organizations, the United Way, and others. Concerted funding and effort by FEMA and key national nonprofits could go a long way toward stimulating robust and essential disaster preparedness at the local level.

(3) Develop a high-tech, quick-strike coordination capability to take in and report out essential information in real time to responding agencies

Current systems of organizing and presenting information are not accessible nor usable by the multitude of nonprofits that might be involved in a large scale response.  The system currently in place does not easily allow a wide array of nonprofits to feed in information about their needs assessments and services, so it’s difficult for other organizations to understand where they may be best used to fill the gaps.  We need to create a system that assumes that many diverse organizations will be involved, and can systematically organize information gathering and sharing of a decentralized response. Responding organizations should be able to get real-time answers to the fundamental question “What is needed by whom where?”

For FEMA to play the primary role in developing and implementing such a system, it will have to radically improve its understanding of the broad nonprofit sector and elevate its senior nonprofit liaisons to a much higher level of authority.

(4) Review and reform the Stafford Act

We need to make sure that our legislation works well to cover and handle the increased amount of emergency events that we are sure to face; that we have a clear sense of the extent of our government’s commitment to supporting people in their relief and recovery; and that budgeting processes are structured in a way that minimizes politicization.

To undertake any or all of these will require the leadership of the dominant players - FEMA, the American Red Cross, and the national VOAD agencies - and the input of local organizations and governments that have experienced some of our recent major disasters.  It will require a shift away from promoting their individual organizations and “becoming fund raising machines” to thinking about what is best for the field and what would make U.S. disaster relief as effective as possible.  Then perhaps we’ll truly learn the lessons that Katrina, Ike, and Gustav have so harshly offered.