Five Ways to Check on How to Donate to Haiti

(March 31) -- In the weeks following the earthquake in Haiti, hundreds of people asked me to whom they should give donations. I made cursory recommendations based on organizations whose work I already knew. But for the most part, I put off their questions. I did so for two reasons.

First, I knew the real need for aid in Haiti would continue for a long, long time. Now, after Haiti has left the headlines, is the time to commit.

Second, I wanted to see what everyone did with the money they already had.

Most officials agree that the emergency stage of aid delivery in Haiti is over. Of course, there are still urgent needs, but for the most part, the chaos has ended. By now, organizations should be able to give specific, detailed plans about the services they intend to provide, as well as full reports about aid they already delivered.

Where to give is, fundamentally, a personal decision, often dictated by faith, family history and finances. But every day, complaints surface about organizations that received money but don't seem to be spending it.

By knowing a few Web sites and key questions to ask, you can be your own investigative journalist and discover for yourself how well your chosen organization is doing in Haiti.

1. Find out who it serves.

The easiest way to do this is to ask. Any organization providing aid in a legitimate, professional, transparent manner should be able to find its constituents on a map. If it can't, then it might not be giving aid, or it might not be giving it directly to the people in need.

Beware of organizations that give vague answers like "camps in Port-au-Prince" or "orphans." Also, you may want to ask how the organization determines its constituents. In many cases, organizations are giving aid to populations they knew before the earthquake, who may or may not have been actually affected by the quake.

If it is important to you to know your aid is going directly to quake victims, find out the geographic location of the group's work and determine if it was in the earthquake path.

You can double-check the answer by looking at maps. This Web site, provided with information from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid, allows you to research maps according to subject area. Many of the maps list the organizations working on specific issues.

2. Ask who the organization's partners are, or if it subcontracts work.

The needs in Haiti are so vast that many large organizations are subcontracting their work to smaller partner organizations. The United Nations, for example, has partnered with numerous aid organizations that it funds to deliver aid and act as its eyes and ears on the ground. This is just the nature of the beast and not necessarily a red flag.

Big organizations have better purchasing power, transportation paths and organizational capacity. But it is important to know who the partners are, and how they measure up, because ultimately that's where your money is going. You can find out by asking with whom the group is partnering and checking their web sites.

If there is a big gap between the number of people it is supposedly serving, money it's spending and the staff members it has on the ground, then it's probably outsourcing its services to other groups.

3. Find out where the offices are and who is on the ground.

If they can't tell you where the organization's offices are, then it might not have any. If it can't tell you which employees are currently working in Haiti, then it is possible no one is, or its staff is rotating too much to give you a name. Those are both big red flags.

Search online for the charity's name. Have any of its officials been interviewed while on the ground in Haiti?

Do a search of Google blogs to find out if volunteers, employees or people in Haiti have actually seen it, and if so, what their experiences were. You can do this by entering the charity name and site:.blogspot.com

You can look at sites like Relief Web, listed above, as well as UNjobs.org, to discover if an organization is hiring. Is it trying to hire a country director? That means it might not have one right now.

Also, keep your eyes out for organizations that have received millions of dollars, but are desperately searching for volunteers. This might be an indication of a largely nonprofessional staff. The exception to this rule would be organizations that provide medical services and count on volunteer doctors and nurses.

4. Know how to read the numbers and how much things cost.

In the world of humanitarian relief, people are counted in terms of each "family," not as individuals. When organizations say they've reached 5,000 people with tents, they usually mean they've given 1,000 tents. One family equals five people.

In the case of delivering services like medical attention, people should be counted as individuals. But sometimes, as in the case of water, people are not counted at all. Organizations only measure the gallons provided and make a guesstimate of how many people were theoretically served.

If an organization has received millions of dollars and says it has provided water to 200,000 people, that is a red flag. Most organizations are not buying filtered, drinkable water. They are usually buying undrinkable water and then treating it.

A truck of water costs $50. Transportation costs include diesel, which costs $3 a gallon. Add to that the cost of treating it, perhaps a bottle or two of bleach for $15, and then some amount for administrative costs. Still, the cost is minimal when you consider how many gallons of water are in a truck.

When it comes to services like food, it is important to ask if an organization is giving hot meals or dry goods. That will determine how it counts the people it serves. Hot meals are counted individually and dry goods usually by family. If it is giving breakfast, that might just be a bowl of boiled grains, which may only cost 10 or 15 cents.

Keep in mind that individual organizations are not paying for security services and security is generally only utilized when giving away physical goods such as tarps, clothing or soap. When aid is delivered, security is usually essential to ensure that each person is able to take an item without being trampled by others.

But most organizations do not pay for security services. Those are provided by the United Nations, which underwrites the cost. Organizations that hire local staff to do manual labor, for which no qualifications are required, are paying the minimum wage of $5 per day.

5. Determine a program's sustainability.

Right now, because of the high level of needs in Haiti, it is tempting to want to support programs that give hot meals or tents. But it is important to ask yourself, when I stop giving, what will happen to the people my contribution serves?

If people are receiving something at no cost, then the program might be meeting a one-time need, such as the need for a surgery. In the long run, however, it is important to ask, who will provide follow up care? Does one organization perform a surgery while another one provides physical therapy? To make your donation count, know the cost of both services and give to both organizations. Or even better, find an organization that trains Haitians to become physical therapists.

You can determine a program's sustainability by seeing how close it gets to the source of the problem. For example, if you want to give to a food-related charity, consider the following hierarchy of need: hot meal, dry goods, kitchen set, tools, seeds, agricultural training. In this case, seeds and agricultural training are most likely to be sustainable in the long term.

If an organization is providing goods, where are they coming from? Organizations that want to make a long-term difference will buy raw materials from the domestic Haitian market, not bring them on ships from abroad. This principle allows people all along the market chain -- importers, warehouses, distributors, and sellers -- to continue to make a living.

Finally, you can use the United Nations' online resources to successfully stalk the organization you are trying to track down. The One Response Web site contains all of the information produced from the coordinated effort in Haiti.

Look at contact lists and meeting minutes to find out if your charity is registered or attending meetings in its respective "cluster" area (agriculture, food, shelter, etc.).

Some organizations prefer to operate outside this structure, but if so, they should be able to provide solid reasons why. Coordination only requires attending one-hour, once- or twice-a-week meetings and brings down the likelihood of areas being served twice or not at all.