New York City’s nonprofits
are planning to gather in January to discuss ways that government and philanthropy can
bolster nonprofits so they can do
more to help move city residents
out of poverty. Thanks to Superstorm Sandy, that conversation
has taken on new urgency.
The storm paralyzed the city,
drove many low-income families from their homes, and added new demands on already
stretched human-service nonprofits.
“Nonprofits have stepped up”
to help the storm victims, says
Allison Sesso, deputy executive
director of the Human Services
Council of New York City, a non-profit association.
But many are worried about
the potential hit to their financ-
es: “I’ve talked to executives
who are saying, ‘When I lift my
head up and pay attention to my
budget, my board’s going to bite
my head off.’ ”
The Human Services Coun-
cil is co-sponsoring the January
conference, which was original-
ly planned for November but
was disrupted by Superstorm
Sandy. The organizers quickly
added a new panel discussion—
on how to ensure nonprofits are
well prepared to respond to di-
sasters.
and made grants to groups that responded to Superstorm
Sandy, including the Henry Street Settlement (right).
ROB BENNET T
nonprofits in New York City reported that they were providing
services to storm victims. About
74 percent of them said Sandy
disrupted their services, and 66
percent said they were forced to
close down temporarily because
of power outages or other problems.
Catholic Charities Brooklyn
and Queens is a case in point.
“After 9/11, we were running
like a sprint,” says Emary Aron-son, the relief fund’s managing
director. “We didn’t know it was
going to be a marathon.”
Years to Recover
The nonprofit association
is one of many philanthropic groups that are facing twin
challenges in the wake of the
violent storm that wracked the
East Coast, especially New York
and New Jersey, in late October.
While giving priority to relief
efforts, they are also trying to
ensure that nonprofits have the
resources to help vulnerable
people, who tend to get hit especially hard by disasters, in the
medium and long term.
“Unfortunately, sometimes
we have short attention spans,”
says Alan van Capelle, chief ex-
ecutive of Bend the Arc: a Jew-
ish Partnership for Justice,
which is raising money to help
storm victims in Newark, N.J.
“We’re committed to not have
short attention spans when peo-
ple suffer after such disasters.”
Bend the Arc, a social-justice
organization, is among nonprof-
its and foundations that are
dusting off one of the key les-
sons learned from the response
to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita,
which devastated the Gulf Coast
in 2005: that it takes years for
poor communities to recover ful-
ly from disasters.
Nonprofits are
drawing on lessons
learned from the
charity response
to September 11.
dreds of volunteers. But it’s not
by nature a disaster organization, and its executive director,
Helena Wong, says its top goal
is to ensure that any rebuilding
projects take into account the
needs of low-income people, who
already have problems finding
affordable housing.
It will draw on its experience
advocating on their behalf when
the city was drawing up plans
to redevelop lower Manhattan
after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Temporary Aid Groups
The American Red Cross got
the most publicity and the most
money for its immediate response to Hurricane Sandy. (It
has raised $168-million for the
effort so far.)
But the storm turned dozens
of other nonprofits into temporary relief organizations—
often under trying circumstances. In a survey conducted by the
Human Services Council, 382
Hewlett Foundation’s Endowment: Correction
Here’s how the William and Flora Hewlett
Foundation invests it
assets. An incorrect
version of this distribution appeared in The
Chronicle’s November
15 issue.
Other
23.0%
Alternative
investments
30.0%
Cash and
money-market
funds
5.0%
Bonds
14.0%
Stocks
28.0%
Three of its sites suffered serious damage—a senior center in
Far Rockaway, a day-care center in Coney Island, and a center for developmentally disabled
people in Sheepshead Bay, in
Brooklyn.
Robert Siebel, the charity’s
leader, says some staff members
worked two or three straight
shifts in the early days to provide the group’s usual services,
like Meals on Wheels, while also
helping to evacuate clients.
Meanwhile, he estimates his
group lost $250,000 because it
had to suspend mental-health
services that get reimbursed
by programs like Medicaid and
managed-care health plans.
He hasn’t had much time
to think about what that will
mean for his group’s bottom
line. “You kind of go into some-
thing like this just doing what
you have to do and hoping the
money comes,” he says. “And it
usually does.”
Caaav: Organizing Asian
Communities, a nonprofit that
advocates for low-income Asian
immigrants and refugees, also
sprang into action after the
storm, offering food, water, and
information to hard-hit neigh-
borhoods—armed with hun-
Nonprofit Veterans
Nonprofits that felt Sandy’s
wrath are fortunate in one respect: They are located in an
area with strong philanthropic
institutions, some of which are
offering both immediate and
longer-term help.
In New Jersey, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
awarded $500,000 to help the
state’s nonprofits provide food,
shelter, and other relief services. It pledged $4.5-million more
to help the state rebuild and
provide social services, including mental-health programs.
The Robin Hood Foundation,
an organization started by a
hedge-fund manager and others to provide poverty-fighting
grants in New York City, reactivated a relief fund it set up in
the wake of the September 11
terrorist attacks.
It has raised $15.5-million to
provide both emergency grants
to nonprofits that are responding to the storm ($8.2-million so
far to more than 90 groups like
Food Bank for New York City
and Henry Street Settlement)
and future aid to the city’s most
vulnerable residents.
The original September 11
fund raised more than $65-mil-
lion—and more than 11 years
later, it is still paying for mental-health and other services for
September 11 victims and their
families.
Long-Term Relief
The Nonprofit Finance Fund,
a financial institution with a
New York office, has set up a
low-interest loan fund to help
storm-damaged social-service
nonprofits repair their facilities,
replace property or equipment,
or cover revenue losses.
But philanthropic help is also
coming from other parts of the
country. The Foundation Center,
which is keeping a tally, says
foundations and corporations
across the nation have awarded
more than $240-million in cash
and product donations to help
Sandy’s victims.
Some nonprofit leaders say
once the dust settles, philanthropic and government leaders must work together to improve life for low-income people
so they are better prepared for
disasters, especially since many
scientists expect climate change
to intensify the impact of future
storms.
Sheena Wright, president of
United Way of New York City—
which is leading United Way’s
fundraising efforts for the entire storm-affected region—says
that even before Sandy, almost
a third of New York state residents who qualified for food
stamps were not getting them.
Such help can be critical when
disasters throw people out of
work, she says.
The Center for Disaster Philanthropy, a new organization
that aims to improve disaster-response coordination, will work
to keep the pressure on, says
Regine Webster, its vice president. “The message we’re very
much sending is private philanthropy needs to pay attention
to this disaster beyond the six-month relief stage.”
