Disaster Relief

Nearly 60 percent of people who donated to charities involved in the Haiti relief-and-recovery effort said they were either very confident or somewhat confident that their donations were well spent, according to a survey released to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the destructive earthquake.

Only 17 percent of the nearly 2,000 donors studied were not at all confident in how the charities spent money raised to support the relief efforts, said Charity Navigator, a watchdog group in Glen Rock, N.J.

In a statement issued on Sunday, U.S. Navy Capt. Mark Kelly thanked the public for its support and mourned the loss of the six people who had died. He asked that people who wanted to help to consider making donations to two Tucscon charities: Tucson’s Community Food Bank and the American Red Cross.

The effect of his request was immediate. The food bank received more than $5,000 in Internet contributions in 15 minutes.

In the year after a devastating earthquake struck Haiti, Americans gave more than $1.4-billion to aid survivors and help the impoverished country rebuild, according to a Chronicle survey of 60 major relief organizations. Roughly 38 percent of that sum has been spent to provide recovery and rebuilding aid.

The outpouring, while generous, fell short of the $1.6-billion Americans contributed in the year after the South Asian tsunamis and the staggering $3.3-billion they donated in the 12 months following Hurricane Katrina.

The Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation (IICF) New York division awarded grants to eight not-for-profit organizations at its year 2010 benefit dinner.

It chose organizations that focus on education, children at risk, the environment, and disaster preparedness.

The grant recipients are Boys & Girls Clubs of America; Boys Hope Girls Hope of New York; Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation; Community Mainstreaming Associates; Covenant House of New Jersey; Hudson River Sloop Clearwater; Starlight Children’s Foundation NY•NJ•CT; and World Cares Center.

AFP CEO Paulette Maehara shares her thoughts on Convio's positive 2010 Holiday Giving Survey findings.

Based on the findings from The Online Giving Study, Network for Good offers four tips to maximize online fundraising.

We'd like to introduce SOFII to those of our readers who don't know about it and share some of the fundraising efforts that have made it into the site's Best of the Best Showcase.

Analyzing trends in the fundraising world is important on many levels. It lets you know what's happening in the industry, what that may mean for the future and how it compares to the past. Studying trends also lets you know where you stand compared to other organizations, allowing you to pinpoint what your organization is doing well and what it needs to work on.

Both fundraising revenue and donor growth remain flat from the first half of 2009 to the first half of 2010, according to the 2010 Target Analytics donorCentrics Index of National Fundraising Performance: 2010 Second Quarter Results report.

Despite the billions donated to Haiti after the disaster, L'Athletique and many other small groups are scrambling to stay afloat amid crushing demand. Less than 15 percent of the $4.7 billion pledged for 2010-11 at the U.N. donors conference in March has been disbursed, along with some debt relief, and donors tend to prefer large, known groups to small community ones.