News reports and televised images of suffering by South Asia tsunami victims or hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast residents prompted Americans to reach deep into their pocketbooks to give last year.
Americans gave more than $2.7 billion to aid Gulf Coast hurricane victims in 2005. But some observers continue to question whether giving to meet urgent, high-profile needs hurts or helps ongoing charitable causes-including churches and faith-based ministries that help poor people.
Early indicators for charitable giving in 2005 don't show clear signs of the “donor fatigue” that some analysts feared would occur. But other signs seem to show contributors may have shifted some discretionary charitable dollars to disaster relief and away from other causes.
A national survey conducted by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University showed most fundraisers for nonprofit organizations didn't believe disaster relief giving hurt their causes, but a majority believed charities in general suffered.
Only one-third of the fundraisers who responded agreed or strongly agreed that giving to hurricane relief came at the expense of their own organizations. But 58 percent agreed disaster-related giving hurt other charities in the short-term, while only one-fourth of the respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed with this idea.
Associated Baptist Press