Charities Tackle Emerging Questions in Aftermath of Terrorist Attacks

More than a month after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, donations are continuing to pour in to disaster-relief organizations. More than $934-million has been raised by charitable organizations working on relief and recovery efforts, according to the latest Chronicle of Philanthropy estimate.

The American Red Cross had raised $370-million as of October 9. While Internet donations surged in the first few weeks after the attacks, they have slowed down considerably. The Red Cross raised $62-million in online donations in the three weeks after the crisis, but has raised only $1-million since.

As of October 9, the September 11th Fund — created by the New York Community Trust and the United Way of New York City — had brought in $164-million.

Other donations include: $35-million for the Salvation Army; $8.4-million for the Families for Freedom Scholarship Fund, an education fund for children of victims being promoted by former president Bill Clinton and Robert Dole, the former Senate majority leader; and $5-million for Catholic Charities.

As the total continues to rise, questions are emerging over how such a huge sum should be distributed — and who should ensure that distribution decisions are handled fairly. Some observers have also started to question whether the generosity might eclipse the actual need.

New York officials say they have settled a dispute over who should oversee the millions of dollars raised by private charities to assist victims of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and State Attorney General Eliot L. Spitzer have agreed to share responsibility. Charities, such as the American Red Cross, had expressed concern about being overseen by the state attorney general’s office, objecting to the office’s idea of creating a database of aid recipients. The Red Cross said the database would dissuade people from coming forward for help.

According to city officials and disaster-relief groups, the biggest challenge will be making sure that money helps indirect victims of the attacks, such as shop owners near the World Trade Center who have seen their business plummet, in addition to those who suffered directly, such as from the death of a family member.

In Washington, United Way of the National Capital Area, which has raised about $1-million for disaster aid, is calling on the more than 60 charitable funds that have been established to help victims of the attack on the Pentagon to join a voluntary governance committee. The United Way says it would welcome federal oversight of the various funds, and it recommended that officials from the U.S. Department of Justice or the U.S. Treasury who regulate charities or have jurisdiction over programs designed to help victims of crime would be best suited for the task.

In Congress, Sen. Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, has introduced legislation aimed at reducing fraudulent charitable solicitations in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Complaints to the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance about questionable fund-raising practices have risen 40 percent since the attacks.

The bill would extend jail time for those convicted of charity scams, increasing the penalty from one year to five years in prison for people caught pretending to be fund raisers for the American Red Cross or other charities.

Senator McConnell’s measure would also direct the Federal Trade Commission to crack down on telemarketers who fraudulently seek charitable gifts.

But some lawyers who work with charities worry that, if the bill were to become law, the federal agency would have overly broad power to regulate charities and might make it difficult for legitimate charities to raise money.

The terrorist attacks are also influencing other legislation in Congress. Forty-four education, labor, religious, civil-rights, and civil-liberties groups have signed a letter to President Bush urging him not to push for passage of his proposal to allow churches and other religious groups to receive government grants for social service.

The groups warn that the proposal would raise divisive issues at a time when national unity is particularly important. “People of all faiths — and those of no religion — are uniting together as Americans. This is no time to divide us along religious lines,” says the letter, which included signatures from the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, People for the American Way, and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.

The groups were responding to reports that the Bush administration planned to push Congress to pass the so-called faith-based plan now that Congress is emphasizing bipartisanship.

The American Red Cross, the biggest recipient of disaster-related funds, has drawn criticism for a decision it made shortly after last month’s terrorist attacks to fire the manager and another top employee of the charity’s Disaster Operations Center, in Falls Church, Va., which the organization describes as the “nerve center” of its disaster-relief services. The dismissed employees, who each had worked for the Red Cross for decades, were Anne D. Miller, manager of the disaster center, and Elizabeth McNulty, who had been the center’s manager of technical support.

The departure of Ms. Miller and Ms. McNulty upset many people associated with the Red Cross, all of whom asked not to be named, because the two employees were perceived as talented and dedicated and because the firings took place at such a crucial time — when the Red Cross was in high gear responding to the terrorist attacks.

David T. McLaughlin, chairman of the Board of Governors of the American Red Cross, said that the firings stemmed from “operational difficulties” and “problems in terms of responding to the Pentagon disaster” in the days after the September 11 terrorist attacks. He said that other Red Cross workers quickly filled in for the fired employees and made sure that the difficulties and problems did not result in any diminution in the quality or amount of services that the Red Cross provided in the aftermath of the attacks.

After halting its activities at the outset of the U.S. attacks, the United Nations’ World Food Program resumed its deliveries of food shipments to Afghanistan. The organization says 7.5 million Afghans will require aid during the next six months, costing the program $230-million.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees says the airdrops of food by the U.S. military will do little to ease the plight of Afghans who are on the verge of starvation. The U.S. military dropped thousands of packets containing ready-to-eat meals, but the U.N. says that without relief workers on the ground, there’s no guarantee that the food will get into the hands of the neediest Afghans.

A French medical charity, Médecins Sans Frontières — also known as Doctors Without Borders — has also criticized the joint humanitarian and military operation, calling the aid a “propaganda tool.” The organization has joined with five other European disaster-relief groups — Care International, Medair, Merlin, Ockenden International, and RefAid — to start an Internet fund-raising drive to help Afghans. The appeal is made on JustGiving.com (http://www.justgiving.com,) a British Web site.