Before donating to a foreign disaster, verify whether international assistance is both needed and wanted

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

This is the first of a series of posts on things to consider about before donating to a foreign disaster to ensure that your donations do the good you intended.

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When a disaster strikes and the news…

The importance of donating to local aid agencies after a disaster

Friday, August 14th, 2009

Recently I saw an appeal on Twitter for donations to the Taiwan typhoon. The appeal was from Global Giving whose website states: “Global Giving connects donors with community based programs that need support”. I have a few questions…

Disaster Tourism

Monday, June 29th, 2009

As director of D-TRAC I was often asked to orient heads of aid agencies and donors on the tsunami recovery efforts. As part of this there was usually a request to visit temporary camps and villages to see things in…

The worst in-kind donations

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

Here are the winners from the stories submitted for the worst in-kind donation contest (related post: What is an in-kind donation). You may have your own personal favorites, all submissions can be read here, please feel free…

Well-intended attempts to help after a disaster may make a confusing situation worse

Sunday, June 7th, 2009

The situation after a disaster can be extremely chaotic, as everyone works as quickly as they can to try and help. Adding to this chaos is an increasing number of individuals and companies traveling to the disaster scene to distribute…