No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
Aug 9th, 2006 at 8:22 am by Susie
Muslim-American charitable organizations attempting to provide humanitarian relief to Lebanon face a disturbing obstacle:
Charities prefer that people send money rather than food, medicine or other goods, because in-kind donations force the charities to pay for shipping, delay the arrival of the aid, and saddle relief workers with the task of sorting and distributing items that may not be needed.
The problem, according to relief groups, is that many people who are inclined to write checks for emergency aid and reconstruction in Lebanon are afraid of ending up in some government database of suspected supporters of terrorism.
Arab American leaders say this is one of the unintended consequences of the U.S. government’s crackdown on charities run by Muslims. Though aimed at cutting off illicit funding for terrorist groups, the crackdown has complicated legitimate humanitarian relief efforts in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank.
“Dozens of people have approached me. They want to help, they want to send money to buy medicine, and they’re afraid of the government reaction to their contribution,” said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations. “Some do it anyway. They can’t sit idly. But they worry that one day they’ll hear a knock on the door.”
The solution (for givers of all cultural origins) is to skip ethnocentric/geocentric charities and go with generic, worldwide ones. The Mercy Corps (mercycorps.org) is my favorite, due to their phenomenally-low overhead (92% of dontations go directly to the aid recipients — administrative costs are around a measly 8%; the ICRC can’t touch that level of efficiency), but you can always find other at places like thehungersite.com and/or thechildhealthsite.com.
Doctors without borders is another excellent group.