Responding to Hurricane Katrina

Donors' Guide to Gulf Coast Relief & Recovery
2006, 71 pages. New York Regional Association of Grantmakers, 79 Fifth Avenue, Fourth Floor, New York, NY 10003-3076, 212-714-0699

PDF available for download at the organization's website.

Giving in the Aftermath of the Gulf Coast Hurricanes
2006, 29 pages. Foundation Center, 79 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10003, 800-424-9836

PDF available for download at the organization's website.

Donors' Guide to Gulf Coast Relief & Recovery
2006, 71 pages. New York Regional Association of Grantmakers, 79 Fifth Avenue, Fourth Floor, New York, NY 10003-3076, 212-714-0699

PDF available fordownload at the organization's website.

Giving in the Aftermath of the Gulf Coast Hurricanes
2006, 29 pages. Foundation Center, 79 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10003, 800-424-9836

PDF available for download at the organization's website.

After Katrina: Public Expectation and Charities' Response
Elizabeth T. Boris and C. Eugene Steuerle, editors

2006, 29 pages. The Urban Institute, 2100 M Street NW, Washington, DC 20037, 202-833-7200

In the year after Katrina, U.S. foundations have responded with an enormous outpouring of assistance: more than $577 million as of August, 2006. This trio of publications provides information on Gulf Coast nonprofits for current and prospective funders, analyzes foundation response, and captures lessons learned.

The exhaustive Donors' Guide to Gulf Coast Relief & Recovery is a tremendous resource for current and prospective funders of Gulf Coast recovery. Included in this well-organized publication are a list of nonprofits providing relief and rebuilding, organized by type; contact details for funders already deploying resources in the Gulf Coast, listed with the organizations they have funded; a set of "advocacy points" helping foundation staff respond to questions regarding their Gulf Coast funding decisions; and a compelling set of statistics on New Orleans pre- and post-Katrina.

The Foundation Center report is part of a multi-year effort to track foundation response to the hurricane. The report notes that the bulk of philanthropic giving in the first year after the disaster was for immediate aid to victims, and the vast majority of funders re-ported no impact on their regular funding programs as a result of their increased giving to the Gulf Coast. Over time, the Center hopes to use such research to provide foundations with a better sense of their unique roles in disaster response.

The Urban Institute report, a set of essays which expand on a roundtable convened jointly with Harvard's Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, examines the ways that disaster response has effected the public's expectations. Looking at responses to Katrina and the September 11 attacks, the authors draw particularly interesting conclusions about the relationship between governments and charities in disaster response, and how unfavorable perceptions of the federal government's response have affected the general pub-lic's perceptions and expectations of the philanthropic sector.