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| Best Practices: Philanthropy |
In the Wake of the Tsunami
Marilen Cawad
07/01/2005
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Wendy Gordon Rockefeller was on vacation in a Caribbean resort last winter,
enjoying the white sands and the calm waters, when she overheard several guests
discussing the tsunami in southern Asia. On Christmas holiday, she had been
determined to keep herself detached from the outside world. But she could not
resist going back to her hotel room and tuning in to cable television, where she
saw the first images of the disaster. How unnerving, she thought, to be in a
bucolic seaside resort when thousands of miles away entire villages were being
washed away by killer waves.
TOP VIEW
Philanthropists sprang into action following last winter’s catastrophic tsunami
in South Asia. Today they are reexamining their efforts to determine best
practices for the next disaster. They are busily weighing the cost-benefit
analysis of various charity strategies, including direct aid to indigenous
groups and donations to large humanitarian organizations, while seeking to
better prepare to provide logistical support after the next disaster strikes. |
Throwing aside her vacation, she logged into her
email and found a message from the staff at Trickle Up, the microenterprise
development organization over which she presides. The message explained that the
group was watching the situation unfold to see if there was anything it could
do.
When she arrived back in New York, Rockefeller, a longtime philanthropist
and wife of John D. Rockefeller’s grandson Larry, attended an emergency board
meeting to decide how the organization would respond to the disaster. The board
established the Tsunami Assistance Fund; Rockefeller was the first to
contribute, though she refuses to divulge the amount. “I wanted my gift to help
in the rebuilding efforts,” Rockefeller says, “like providing livelihoods for
the survivors in the disaster areas.”
The Trickle Up fund, through a
partnership with Sri Lanka’s thrift and credit cooperative SANASA, will provide
equity or seed capital and business development training to help tsunami victims
in that country become micro-entrepreneurs. The survivors will be trained to run
microenterprises; they will save and reinvest a portion of their profits in
their business and qualify for loans. The pooled savings will, in turn, be
available to others for their seed capital needs. As of mid-April, the Tsunami
Assistance Fund for Sri Lanka had amassed $120,000, managed by Trickle Up.
 | | (Illustration by Jim Frazier.) |
The Direct Approach
In line with the growing popularity of hands-on
philanthropy, the tsunami prompted donors such as Rockefeller to seek ways to
take an active role in the relief and recovery efforts. Rather than donate funds
to large charities, many elected to fund projects, from inception to completion,
directly in the affected areas. These individuals have been most successful when
they have sought out local groups and nongovernmental organizations that have
close contact with those in need.
Some Philanthropists have sought out this
expertise by hiring for-profit firms such as Global Giving, CreateHope (both of
Bethesda, Md.), or Geneva Global, a philanthropy consulting service based near
Philadelphia, which funnels funds from donors directly to overseas projects.
“This enables them to track their money, almost as if it were an investment,”
says Eric Thurman, Geneva Global’s CEO. The agency performs what it calls
“performance philanthropy,” researching and identifying grassroots charitable
projects in developing countries, then linking these projects to individual
American grantors.
Geneva Global claims to have some 500 contacts in
developing countries who seek out and investigate the most effective local
charitable groups. It compiles their research and recommends projects to its
philanthropist clients.
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