The Dwindling Of Compassion

AMERICAN RED CROSS
P.O. Box 37243
Washington, D.C. 20013
800-HELP-NOW
www.redcross.org

CARE
151 Ellis St. NE
Atlanta, Ga. 30303-2439
800-521-CARE
www.care.org


"The catastrophic earthquake that devastated parts of Pakistan and India this month has strained the ability of many international relief organizations to raise funds from American donors, many of whom feel overwhelmed by appeals for what has been an unusually high number of major disasters this year.

So far donations to about a dozen major relief groups for the 7.6-magnitude temblor -- which may have killed as many as 40,000 [79,000] people and left more than a million [3 million] people homeless -- have totaled $13.1-million. If donations continue at the current pace, these groups would receive only a fraction of what was raised for the Indian Ocean tsunamis, which totaled $1.3-billion, or for Hurricane Katrina, which to date comes to $1.8-billion.

Save the Children, which has been providing tents, blankets, and other supplies to Pakistanis in Muzzafarabad and other cities rocked by the quake, received $1.3-million in the 10 days after the earthquake struck. By comparison, the group had raised $5-million just five days after the tsunamis swept through South Asia last December.

Mark Melia, a fund raiser at Catholic Relief Services, in Baltimore, said he worries that with so many natural disasters, it's easy for donors to lose sight of the magnitude of the South Asian earthquake. His organization had raised $1.1-million for the earthquake as of last week."...


Nicole Wallace and Ian Wilhelm "Earthquake Taxes Capacity of Donors and Charities to Provide Relief Aid" The Chronicles Of Philanthropy: Update" October 20, 2005.











Earlier this year at the Port of Karachi, Pakistan Navy soldiers load vegetables for the tsunami victims onto a ship bound for Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

Photo credit: Pakistan Times.