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.

I’ve been silent on the blog for a few weeks due to paternity leave.

In my absence, events continued to raise questions about the capability of the U.S. disaster response system. There were criticisms of the response to Hurricane Ike, a report from the GAO that the American Red Cross and other leading nonprofits lack the capacity for a major emergency, and the American Red Cross just received $100 million from Congress to replenish funds for disaster relief.

U.S. disaster response is officially a public-private partnership.  It is one of the few instances in which the government officially designates nonprofits to provide support (see the National Response Framework).  The lead governmental agency - FEMA - is given authority to coordinate non-governmental groups.

Some major weaknesses that I perceive:

(1) I do not believe there is clarity between what our government views as its responsibility and what it considers the purview of private donations to nonprofits and faith-based groups. The Stafford Act gives permission for the federal government to fund everything from temporary shelter and cash grants to legal aid, food supplies, and home repair.  But to whom and to what point?   Is the government primarily focused on helping those who have the least resources to support their own recovery, or on everyone - rich or poor - who was affected?  Is it their goal to support survivors until they’re able to return to their homes and start clean-up, or get them back to their level of pre-storm living?

The way the Act is structured, federal funding is negotiated on a case-by-case basis with the affected state after each emergency.  The government clearly sees itself as the primary supporter of the repair of damaged infrastructure.  “People” issues, however, seem to get revisited each time.  The danger is that those decisions can become politicized, especially since the funding is budgeted outside the annual appropriations process.  Mississippi sustained only half as much damage as Louisiana from hurricane Katrina, but Congress mandated they share almost equally the initial $11.6 billion in CDBG funds for “citizen” long-term recovery (after several more months, Louisiana was successful in advocating for more).  Mississippi had a Republican governor and a strong Congressional delegation at the time, with one of its senators (Thad Cochran) chairing the Appropriations Committee.

(2) The nature of fundraising for emergencies is episodic.  Nonprofit responders like the American Red Cross reach out to private donors and the general public after each disaster.  States and the federal government also negotiate federal grants after each emergency.  As emergencies occur more frequently, the ability to rely upon the necessary level of funds through such methods becomes questionable.  It also makes very few resources available for disaster preparedness.

(3) FEMA has limited understanding and ability to coordinate the many local nonprofits that will provide  extremely important services in any major catastrophe (another GAO finding).  As the recent GAO report suggests, and as our Katrina experience demonstrated, a major event will outstrip the capacity of the national nonprofit responders. Local groups will fill the gaps, and since they have local trust and expertise, they can be extremely effective providers.  While FEMA assumed the responsibility to coordinate the efforts of these groups after squabbling about it with the American Red Cross during Katrina, the agency has little capacity to do so successfully.

(4) Local groups have very limited capacity and profile to access contributions by donors from outside the affected area.  The bulk of disaster donations go to large, high-profile national responders like the Salvation Army and the American Red Cross, while in a major catastrophe, local groups are often first on the scene.  During Katrina, for example, many local groups jumped in when they saw the need in their  communities, and they did so without worrying whether they had the funds for it.  But they don’t have the fund raising capacity to provide such services and make themselves known to a completely new public, and they often struggle to find the funds to pay for their courage.

Improvements since Katrina imply that we simply needed to enhance the efficiency and operations of the system already in place.  It’s a centralized approach that is built around a few institutions - FEMA, the American Red Cross, and the national VOAD agencies.  This works well for the size of most emergencies, but continues to crack when tasked at a large scale.  We seem to think that improving the system means building these institutions big enough and efficient enough to respond to anything.

I find this underlying assumption questionable.  I think we need to develop an approach that is decentralized and supple enough to integrate the strengths of hundreds of nonprofits if necessary.  I have some ideas for this that I’ll share in a following post.  I’d also appreciate comments from those of you who are experienced in providing disaster relief internationally.

As Hurricane Gustav approached this weekend, the president and both would-be presidents engaged in a bit of fund raising, mostly for the American Red Cross (ARC).  Barack Obama directly asked all those in his fund raising network to send funds to the ARC; John McCain made mention of the ARC in his remarks and the RNC made a direct plea for delegates at the convention to make a donation; and President Bush asked for support for both the ARC and the Salvation Army.

Does it strike anyone else as odd that our political leaders now style themselves as philanthropic advisers when disaster hits?

(1) Instead of telling me where to make my charitable contributions, I would have hoped to hear more about what we can expect from the government’s response. FEMA still does not have a thoroughly vetted strategy for housing after an emergency (and why FEMA was ultimately given this responsibility rather than HUD still mystifies me).  I’m also unclear as to how FEMA has increased their capacity to coordinate all the local nonprofits that might respond, a role to which they agreed after both the agency and the ARC said it was the other’s responsibility during Katrina - so neither did it.

OK, perhaps these are too technical for a general audience.  But I also haven’t heard any present or future president articulate a vision for government’s role in disaster response.  President Bush, in his remarks, noted that it’s the job of the federal government to assist the states.  To what level?  What will public funds - both state and federal - pay for?

Are citizens expecting one thing and the government set up to deliver another?   My sense is that there is a  mismatch between what the Stafford Act offers (that’s the law that gives structure to FEMA and disaster funds), and what disaster survivors - and perhaps even the unaffected general public - expect.  To hear about the role of our government after disaster and how legal structures, public budgets, and leading agencies will successfully meet those obligations - that’s what I expect from political leaders.

(2) I expect a charitable adviser to have done some vetting.  I’m making an assumption here, but my guess is that there was not a great deal of analysis or comparison of the ARC and other responding organizations done by the administration or either campaign.

Even if there was, it’s a poor use of the bully pulpit.  The American Red Cross is one of the most recognizable brands in the sector (though technically it’s not a nonprofit, but a government-chartered institution).  The Salvation Army regularly ranks among the top three of nonprofits receiving the most revenue annually.  People don’t need a great deal of direction for them to come to mind.

Immediate response to a disaster is inherently local. Grassroots organizations have significant trouble accessing the funds they need, since they don’t have a national profile.  Local foundations like the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation* (which was formed after hurricane Katrina to support relief efforts), the Greater New Orleans Foundation, the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, and the Community Foundation of Acadiana (which covers southwest Louisiana) all created Gustav funds and know how to identify local groups doing excellent work.  It would not have taken much to find and mention such organizations in addition to the ARC and other national organizations.

Maybe each made his plea on behalf of the ARC because its current financial position is precarious and they want to keep it healthy.  The organization does play a role in the National Response Plan, after all.  But any donor will tell you: that’s usually the wrong reason to ask for her money.

In a report for the Aspen Institute about the nonprofit response to Katrina, I recommended mandating that the American Red Cross give 5% of its disaster fund raising to local funders after an exceptional catastrophe. With the American Red Cross such a strong and recognizable brand, I didn’t think it wise to try to create a national fund (with all the risk and start-up costs) that would support grassroots organizations on the local level.  But if would-be presidents are going to give their personal imprimatur, perhaps a private national fund that distributes funds on a competitive basis to the American Red Cross AND local groups - i.e., to whichever organizations are doing the best work - is the next great innovation.

Let’s keep in mind: Private, voluntary action is both necessary and welcome after emergencies hit, but it is not sufficient nor fully capable of doing all that’s needed.**  Rather than try to score political points and look caring by asking people to donate time and money, I call on President Bush and Senators Obama and McCain to make clear what government will do.  And then make it work.

* Disclaimer: I am a founder of the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation and continue to provide strategic advice to the foundation.

**In all the media frenzy over Gustav, they missed a huge opportunity to highlight the incomplete nature of the recovery from Katrina.  Local folks, faith-based groups, and nonprofits have done heroic things in the past three years - yet all of it amounts to a small percentage of what’s needed.  This recent report by Oxfam does an excellent job of laying that out.

On Monday, the Nonprofit Sector and Philanthropy Program at the Aspen Institute released Mobilizing Change: 10 Nonprofit Policy Proposals to Strengthen U.S. Communities.  Full disclosure: I helped edit the paper and wrote much of the introduction, and its recommendation for FEMA to create a high-level coordinating body to better integrate community-based nonprofits in disaster relief derives from a paper I authored on the local nonprofit response to Katrina.  

That recommendation stems in part from the experiences shared by international humanitarian organizations like Mercy Corps and IRC.  For many of them, Katrina was the first time they responded to a domestic emergency.  In an international setting, they are accustomed to working with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and were mystified to find that neither FEMA nor any other group was focused on coordinating the multitude of local nonprofits working heroically to provide relief.

This is just one example of how comparative analysis between our domestic response architecture and the international system might result in suggestions and improvements.  What can the U.S. learn about disaster preparedness from Bangladesh, which in 2007 experienced a cyclone as strong and as damaging as a 1991 storm that killed 138,000 people - but in 2007 had fewer than 10,000 deaths?  Still tragic, yes, but a vast improvement in safety and response.   

The Mobilizing Change report also points out the growing reliance on U.S. nonprofits by government at all levels, to provide services and implement programs.  The report calls for a high-level commission to explore this relationship and propose public policies that would help government strengthen nonprofit impact, rather than focus exclusively on oversight.  

I support such a commission, since I sense that most policymakers do not understand the nonprofit sector very well, even while they are turning more and more of their attention toward it. Yet what are the implications for the nonprofit sector of an increasingly intertwined relationship with government? Can nonprofits retain their independence and hang on to the characteristics that make them uniquely successful?  The unintended consequences deserve further exploration.

This is analogous to concerns raised about NGOs in the newly published Can NGOs Make a Difference?  The Challenges of Development Alternatives. As the editors - Anthony Bebbington, Samuel Hickey, and Diana Mitlin - flatly state in their introduction: “There are serious doubts regarding how far NGOs in the North are able to do anything that is especially alternative to their host countries’ bilateral aid programmes.” More on that later.