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Tsunami Relief Fund: has anyone else donated yet?

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Tsunami Relief Fund: has anyone else donated yet?

Postby Spazmogen on Wed Dec 29, 2004 11:07 pm

Rather than buying some new gadget's for my computer, I donated to one of the many relief funds out there.

I donated on Dec 27th when the published death toll was 3,500. I just knew it was going to be MUCH larger that that.

If you haven't donated, please do so.

I donated to the Red Cross, and I may donate again, but this time to Doctor's Without Borders or OXFAM.

If you have donated, thank you.

Please do not post how much you donated, this is not a contest. I didn't post this as a means of bragging (either for myself or for you, the reader).

I'll sticky this post for a week or so.
Last edited by Spazmogen on Mon Jan 17, 2005 9:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby cfitz on Thu Dec 30, 2004 12:30 am

Yes, I donated to the International Red Cross and Christian Childrens Fund:

https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation-form.asp

http://www.christianchildrensfund.org/d ... ppeal.aspx

About four hours after I donated, I got an email from Christian Children's Fund. I thought it was my receipt, but instead it was an appeal to donate. I was glad I already donated.

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Postby sqlb on Thu Dec 30, 2004 12:36 am

Donated through the RED CROSS via Amazon.com. They have the RC logo upfront and center in www.amazon.com
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Postby Bhairav on Thu Dec 30, 2004 2:54 am

Donated through local organisations and the Prime Minister's Relief Fund here. It's really bad :( , and a few native Stone Age tribes in the Nicobar Islands have been wiped out,it is feared.
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Postby bac on Thu Dec 30, 2004 3:55 am

Those who are thinking of donating thru the red cross might want to first do a google search of "red cross" +oversight, and look at the articles about how they have a habit of diverting donated money to future unrelated causes instead of the one you thought you were donating to. Also I see a lot of 9/11 specific gripes with them in particular.
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Postby Spazmogen on Thu Dec 30, 2004 2:31 pm

bac wrote:Those who are thinking of donating thru the red cross might want to first do a google search of "red cross" +oversight, and look at the articles about how they have a habit of diverting donated money to future unrelated causes instead of the one you thought you were donating to. Also I see a lot of 9/11 specific gripes with them in particular.


It seems to have been a problem with the American Red Cross only.

The American Red Cross claims to have fixed their problem with mismanagement of the funds.

On the Canadian Red Cross site, you get to select where the $ goes. Whether it reallys goes there, I have no idea. I only hope it does.

As of Noon hour on 30 Dec 2004, CBC NEWS is reporting the death toll is 114,000 and expected to grow.
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Postby cfitz on Thu Dec 30, 2004 9:06 pm

The enormity of this disaster is difficult to comprehend. The ever increasing death toll (exceeding 117,000 already, and some say with the potential to reach 400,000 or more) tells part of the story. But seeing some of the devestation may make it more real.

Here are some before and after photos of Aceh in Sumatra, Indonesia. It is one of the hardest hit areas. The death toll there alone may approach 175,000:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... comp08.htm

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... comp04.htm

More comparison photos may been found here.

As bad as the above pictures are, they are rather antiseptic and give you only a sense of the physical scale of destruction. For an idea of the human toll, view the following picture WARNING! Very large and graphic - the photo shows hundreds of dead bodies. Click only if you are willing to view such material:

http://img145.exs.cx/img145/1879/ruumiita4ft.jpg

This is certainly a terrible tragedy of immense scale. Please do what you can to help.

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Postby cfitz on Thu Dec 30, 2004 9:35 pm

bac wrote:Those who are thinking of donating thru the red cross might want to first do a google search of "red cross" +oversight, and look at the articles about how they have a habit of diverting donated money to future unrelated causes instead of the one you thought you were donating to. Also I see a lot of 9/11 specific gripes with them in particular.


In my view these concerns were unfounded. Yes, I understand that people may wish their donations to go only to the one specific cause they have designated, but I personally don't presume to know exactly where and how disaster funds should be best spent. I rely on the organizations that distribute the funds to know how best to manage them. To me, that is the point of such organizations and the value they add. If we as individual donors could know all the details of how to distribute aid, then why wouldn't we write checks directly to individual victims?

I see the people who complained about the Red Cross' distribution of disaster funds as being akin to the people who once a year rush to volunteer to serve food to the homeless on Thanksgiving day and are upset when they are turned away by the local soup kitchen because all the volunteer slots are already filled. These people, while well intentioned, are missing the point that there are many needs that need to be met throughout the year in a variety of circumstances. Instead of being upset that their generous offer is not applied to the one particular event they wished to sponsor, they should be glad to extend that offer to other people with other needs at other times.

So do I care if "my" dollar goes directly to disaster B instead of disaster A? No. As long as the needs of A and B are both met, I am satisified that I could do my little part to help. And frankly, once funds are co-mingled, who is to say whose dollar went where anyway? They aren't marked. Perhaps having your dollar go to B allowed another's dollar to go to A. How is that any less effective than having your dollar go to A while someone else's goes to B? Unless a charity is fraudulently diverting donations or wastefully mismanaging them, I am happy to let them decide where the funds can do the most good, subject to their overall mission and goals.

Having said all that, I absolutely respect your right to choose to whom and how you donate your dollars, and have no problem with you deciding you don't wish to give through the Red Cross or any other organization you decide doesn't meet your criteria. But please don't let that serve as an excuse to avoid giving at all.

Along those lines, and in the spirit of being productive, why don't you please recommend some other organizations through which to give, ones that you are personally comfortable with? Better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

Respectfully,

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Postby Spazmogen on Thu Dec 30, 2004 10:22 pm

cfitz wrote:As bad as the above pictures are, they are rather antiseptic and give you only a sense of the physical scale of destruction. For an idea of the human toll, view the following picture WARNING! Very large and graphic - the photo shows hundreds of dead bodies. Click only if you are willing to view such material:

http://img145.exs.cx/img145/1879/ruumiita4ft.jpg

This is certainly a terrible tragedy of immense scale. Please do what you can to help.

cfitz


I am truely speechless. I could only imagine what it must look and SMELL like to be there. Now I know what it looks like.

The survivors will have memories & nightmares equal to or worse than those of soldiers coming home from a war.
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Postby LoneWolf on Sat Jan 01, 2005 12:45 pm

Donated to the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee, specifying the funds be used for the South Asia Earthquake 2004 funding.

http://www.crwrc.org/donate/online.html

Links to other aid organizations can be found here:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/1 ... .aidsites/

Right now the goal is to provide clean water and aid that will prevent thousands of additional deaths from secondary causes such as typhus, cholera, and malaria. I encourage everyone to show those in South Asia how generous the world can be, and that we grieve for their losses.
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Postby MonteLDS on Sat Jan 01, 2005 1:34 pm

i got around to donating this morning. I put the money I would spend on my mom for her birthday towards the donation, plus a little more on my part.
I feel so sad for all those people... how tragget
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Postby bac on Mon Jan 03, 2005 5:19 am

cfitz:

Most folks in this forum spend a lot of time figuring out the best price (best value?) when shopping for consumer electronics such as dvd drives, even though these items are relatively cheap. When buying a mutual fund, doing one's homework involves looking at expense ratios, performance, fees, etc. I don't want to fight, especially in this thread, but the tone here is as if the same sort of caution doesn't apply when donating ones money. Me, I like to believe money I donate is well spent - from my point of view.

I don't believe in telling others what to do with their money, but since you ask, some philanthropic choices would be:

Set up your own foundation, go and contribute/donate locally, or perhaps look at some data on the charities you're considering, for example:

http://smartmoney.com/mag/index.cfm?sto ... ties#table

From their list, these look reasonable for relief aid, and have been specifically recommended for the tsunami cause in other lists I've seen:
http://www.careusa.org/
http://www.savethechildren.org/

your choice may depend upon additional criteria such as what cause concerns you most. I know quantitative metrics aren't the best, but it's a better start than looking at what's the largest charities.
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Postby BuddhaTB on Tue Jan 04, 2005 12:46 am

I donated $50 from my last paycheck to the Red Cross.
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Postby UALOneKPlus on Wed Jan 05, 2005 4:37 pm

Horrible tragedgy!

My company matched my donation to the tsunami victims.
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Postby MediumRare on Thu Jan 06, 2005 5:59 pm

I put my remaining Canadian dollars in Air Canada's en Route collection for the Red Cross today and will get a proper donation going when I've dumped my jet lag and had a look at the agencies involved. There are a lot of bogus schemes flying around. :x

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