Disaster Relief

If you donated cash to survivors of the Nepal earthquakes this year, you may want to consider exactly how—or if—your money has been used. Sixteen of the world's largest disaster-relief charities have revealed to the Thomson Reuters Foundation that they are spending up to a sixth of funds designated for Nepal on their overheads rather…

The tech giant, which already has given more than $1 million to relief organizations, is offering to match individual donations up to $5.5 million in the hope of raising $11 million. Google will hand the funds to Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children, the International Rescue Committee and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The…

According to a Sept. 2, 2011 CNNMoney report, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 inspired Americans to help their neighbors in need like never before by donating billions of dollars to families that lost family members during the 9/11 attacks. Many Americans gave willingly to assist those in need after 9/11. That said, however, many 9/11 charities were under scrutiny for failing to raise money for victims...

FIFA’s ethics committee is investigating charity donations made by Chung Mong-Joon, the South Korean billionaire running for FIFA president, according to letters from the Asian Football Confederation to the sport’s global governing body. Chung, the second-largest shareholder in shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., sent $500,000 to Haiti following an earthquake there in 2010, and provided…

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and its philanthropic arm, the Walmart Foundation, are making a $25 million, five-year commitment to disaster preparation and recovery efforts. The announcement, timed to coincide with the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, will be made today in New Orleans. Kathleen McLaughlin, the foundation’s president, said grants will be made in the U.S.…

The American Red Cross, which has often boasted of its transparency, attempted to halt a congressional inquiry into its disaster relief work last year, according to a private letter Gail McGovern, CEO of the American Red Cross, wrote to Rep. Bennie Thompson. In the letter, McGovern asked Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi and the ranking…

In the weeks since Baltimore was torn by riots, nonprofits have earmarked millions of dollars for struggling city communities to address the unemployment, poverty and other underlying problems that fueled the April unrest. Fifty families that were affected by the riots will be given vehicles and a course on car maintenance, providing a cornerstone to…

The Ebola epidemic exposed long-standing holes in aid delivery, which desperately needs an overhaul before the next international emergency hits, aid experts said on Thursday. Many of the shortcomings seen during the Haiti earthquake of slow responses and uncoordinated relief efforts were repeated during the Ebola crisis that erupted in West Africa a year ago,…

When Ebola struck Africa, governments, foundations, and charities raced to provide money. But just as in other disaster zones, tracking what happened to the money and discovering whether it was put to good use can be nearly impossible. To understand the nature of the problem, Tiny Spark’s Amy Costello discussed the challenges two researchers faced…

When the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004 devastated parts of Indonesia, and when a massive earthquake hit Haiti in 2010, a sizable percentage of Americans followed those natural disasters closely — and opened their wallets to relief efforts in correspondingly high numbers.

But this month’s typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines is not commanding the same levels of attention.

And one result of the less intense interest, a new Pew Research Center survey finds, is that so far Americans are giving less to Haiyan relief efforts than they did in the aftermath of earlier high-profile natural disasters.