Direct Relief’s policy regarding designated contributions for Hurricanes Helene and Milton response activities is simple: All contributions designated for “Hurricane Helene” and “Hurricane Milton” will be used directly for relief and recovery efforts related to these crises.

Direct Relief does not use solicitations for disaster relief to raise funds for unrestricted use.

This update outlines Direct Relief’s commitment to transparency in its hurricane response activities and details its efforts to honor donor intent.

Commitment to Transparency and Accountability

Direct Relief is dedicated to ensuring transparency and accountability in all its operations, striving to provide those affected by Hurricanes Helene and Milton with the necessary aid and resources to recover and rebuild their communities. The organization values the trust placed by donors and is committed to maximizing the impact of every contribution.

To respect donor intentions, Direct Relief’s online donation page requires donors to choose either “Hurricane Helene,” “Hurricane Milton,” or a combined fund for both hurricanes, where donations will be split between the two responses. Donations specifying “Hurricane Helene,” “Hurricane Milton,” or similar notations in the check memo line or accompanying correspondence will be honored as instructions to restrict the gift for the designated response effort.

Designated Donations: Geographies Supported

Donations Designated for “Hurricane Helene”

• Supported Regions: North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Virginia, and South Carolina.

Donations Designated for “Hurricane Milton”

• Supported Regions: Florida, primarily where Hurricane Milton made landfall and caused significant damage. Assistance may also extend to displaced residents in neighboring states.

Donations Designated for Both “Hurricanes Helene and Milton”

• Supported Regions: All areas affected by both hurricanes, encompassing all the states listed above. Donations made to support both responses will be split evenly between the two efforts, ensuring equitable support to all impacted regions.

How Designated Contributions Are Used

All contributions designated for “Hurricane Helene” and/or “Hurricane Milton” will be used exclusively for relief and recovery efforts related to these specific crises. This commitment includes both programmatic costs and associated expenses directly associated with the relief activities, including:

Deploying Humanitarian Aid and Medical Supplies:

• Urgent Medical Needs: Mobilizing urgently needed medications at no cost to affected communities, including chronic disease medications (e.g., insulin, hypertension medications), vaccines (e.g., tetanus vaccines), and other essential drugs.
• Essential Supplies: Providing field medicine packs for first responder teams and vital items for displaced or sheltered populations.
• Distribution: Securing necessary medications and supplies through donations and procurement, and transporting them to nonprofit healthcare providers, including free and charitable clinics, health centers, public health agencies, and mobile medical teams.
• Financial Assistance: Offering direct financial support to bolster on-the-ground operations.
• Emergency Grants: Providing emergency operating grants to offset cost burdens for grassroots organizations serving core functions.
• Infrastructure Rebuilding: Supporting the rebuilding and reinforcement of damaged infrastructure in affected communities.
• Data and Analytics Infrastructure and Information Management: Conducting assessment, analysis, reporting, and dissemination of crucial situational information to ensure an effective and coordinated response.
• Associated Expenses: Direct Relief Activities: Covering costs directly related to the relief efforts, such as credit-card processing fees, accounting fees, postage for issuing receipts, banking fees for wire transfers, warehousing and packaging of medical materials, and IT support necessary for relief operations
• Note: No funds designated for these hurricanes will be used for Direct Relief’s fundraising activities, which are covered by generous bequests.

Accounting for Restricted Donations

Direct Relief establishes internal funds for all designated contributions to ensure that donor intentions are honored. All expenditures related to Hurricanes Helene and Milton are meticulously recorded for both internal management and external reporting purposes.

Importance of Unrestricted Support

While designated contributions are vital for specific relief efforts, general unrestricted financial support is essential for Direct Relief to fulfill its broader humanitarian mission. Unrestricted funds enable the organization to respond rapidly and effectively to emergencies, providing assistance to people in various situations that may not receive widespread attention.

Honoring Donor Intent

Direct Relief is obligated to—and will always—honor the intent of a donor-designated financial contribution, including, obviously, in this instance with regard to contributions designated for Hurricanes Helene and Milton. If a donor makes a clearly restricted gift for a purpose or with a restriction that Direct Relief is not able to fulfill or comply with, the organization will advise the donor of this situation and inquire if other uses may be permitted. If a donor’s intent cannot be met, Direct Relief will offer to direct the gift to another nonprofit able to fulfill the donor’s intent or return the gift.

Hurricane Helene Relief

Donate

Hurricane Milton Relief

Donate

The post Hurricanes Helene and Milton Donation Policy: Direct Relief’s Commitment to Transparency and Honoring Donor Intent appeared first on Direct Relief.

At Direct Relief, we perform the same functions for humanitarian health purposes, delivering life-saving medicines requiring cold-storage and handling to people in all 50 states and 80 countries, often after emergencies and in areas where commercial activities don’t have a strong business reason to engage – insulin for kids with Type 1 diabetes in Sudan, cancer drugs for children in Malawi, and flu vaccine for island-wide vaccination campaigns in Puerto Rico.

The greatest hurdle for access to the vaccine is the same one that exists for every other type of health service – reaching people who are disconnected or don’t have easy access to needed health care – typically, the least fortunate. The goal is universal access for this vaccine,  ASAP  – and it’s the right one. But universal access doesn’t exist for anything else in health care, thus the hurdle. Hurdles are well marked because you need to see them, or you’ll get tripped up by them.

The Pfizer vaccine demands constant refrigeration at 70 degrees below zero, Celsius — Arctic-level cold – while the Moderna vaccine requires roughly the temperature of a standard freezer. Broad expertise exists in the U.S. about keeping vaccines cold, transporting them to every part of the country, and what to do if a freezer fails along the way. (Short answer: Have a backup.)

It won’t be easy — the country’s robust cold-chain infrastructure for vaccines and drugs is geared mainly for carefully monitored refrigeration, not carefully monitored “ultra-cold” frozen. But, we can overcome the higher degree-of-difficulty operational issues presented by lower temperatures. Once we do, the people with regular access to health care will be able to get the vaccine: most will dutifully show up at their doctor’s offices, at hospitals, in retail drugstores, and at stand-up vaccination sites.

But reaching everyone else — the millions of Americans who rarely see a doctor and can’t afford the ordinary medicines they need — is a problem that even the best medical supply chain can’t solve.

The existence of vaccines and being able to transport them don’t save lives; vaccinating people does. The “last mile” issue is always the hardest and most expensive one, logistically. But, on this one, a concurrent last mile hurdle is not a logistics issue – it’s a personal-decision issue and will depend on trust and a personal connection.

The people I mean are those who don’t seek medical care until they’re sick enough to be rushed to the emergency room, who have no health insurance or avoid care because of steep deductibles, or face other obstacles.

Telecommuting isn’t an option at their blue-collar jobs, many of which are “essential.” The home they return to after work may also be home to extended families or others, increasing their risk of infection. They may be experiencing homelessness or live in a rural area far from the hospital. They include undocumented people who fear that a visit to the doctor could lead to their deportation. They include Black and Latino residents who have been infected, hospitalized, and died at higher rates from Covid-19 and have been slammed harder by the pandemic than whites, but have less trust in vaccines because of past government-sponsored medical interventions, such as the infamous Tuskeegee Experiment.

Top-down distribution schemes will get vaccines physically close to these people, but final physical and personal connections will be essential. The organizations best equipped to reach them are 1,400 nonprofit community health centers, which collectively run 14,000 clinical sites throughout the U.S. They serve as the critical health safety-net for 30 million people who rely on them every day for affordable and high-quality primary health care, including vaccinations. 

A History of Inclusive Care

The health centers were created in 1965, a year after the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. The ’64 legislation outlawed segregation in schools and public accommodations and discrimination in voter registration and other areas of civic life. Still, it had not included health care for Black Americans whose access had historically been severely limited. Fifty-five years later, 63 percent of health center patients are members of racial or ethnic minority groups.

Perhaps because they are locally run and exist only in medically underserved areas or for medically underserved populations, these nonprofit organizations receive astonishingly little public attention given that they comprise the country’s largest health system for primary health care. Funded mainly by Medicaid reimbursements for those patients who have it and annual appropriations, they don’t turn anyone away. They serve anyone regardless of their ability to pay, and their extensive, standard reporting data reflects provably good health services on objective measures at lower costs than other providers.

These centers have deep experience doing whatever it takes to bring health services to the people, adjusting their operational plans to the realities. We see them do it after every emergency, which always hit those with the least cushion the hardest, just as Covid is doing at this moment.

Health workers at Bee Busy Wellness Center in Houston, for instance, first realized they needed a mobile clinic when the floodwaters of 2017’s Hurricane Harvey cut off whole communities from much of the city. The mobile unit also reached people too wary to trek to a brick-and-mortar clinic even if it were possible — including a community of residents originally from Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Sudan. Some of them had never before been to a doctor.

Trust is an essential, if intangible, currency in many aspects of life, and ultimately, it may be the most profound one in this vaccination push. But it can’t be declared into existence by decree or order. It only exists to the extent it’s earned, and health centers have been earning it for 55 years by doing what Bee Busy did after Harvey – showing up, showing respect, making a connection, and keeping their promises.

Community health centers have been quietly ramping up for this moment. Many have prompted their patients to get flu shots this fall. While the primary motivation was to avoid the “twindemic” of coronavirus and seasonal flu, it also served as a dry run for the Covid vaccine push. In Chicago, Esperanza Health Centers set up a drive-thru flu shot operation on one side of its parking lot and did Covid-19 testing on the other side, using social media to promote the effort.

In many cities, multiple community health centers have banded together to run vaccination or health care fairs to reach thousands of people per day. The community health centers in Puerto Rico have stepped up to an extraordinary degree in the three years following Hurricane Maria’s devastation. On a single day in August 2019, nearly 3,000 people lined up at the convention center in San Juan, Puerto Rico, for free vaccinations, dental check-ups, and visits with OB-GYNs, psychologists, and nutritionists, provided by 20 community health centers.

Looking Ahead

Some of the leading vaccine candidates require two doses, the second one within a fixed period after the first. Doubling the number of injections adds complexity to planning and administration. But health centers are operational every day and have made rapid adjustments with telehealth and patient-contact procedures over the recent months of lockdowns and quarantines. As a result, they’re as well if not far better positioned than other alternatives to serve their communities in the upcoming mass vaccination campaigns.

Most public discussions about health care focus on health insurance, which is essential and related but is also a different thing than providing the care itself. This upcoming vaccination effort is about the latter.

In community health centers and free and charitable clinics, we’re profoundly fortunate that we have thousands of sites and dedicated clinicians who have earned the trust of the people hit hardest by the virus and whose access to the vaccine is essential to getting through the pandemic together.

The post Covid Vaccines Are New. The Challenges of Reaching Everyone Are Not. appeared first on Direct Relief.

We both run organizations founded to address unmet public health needs and have seen problems with access to medicines play out in different ways. For example, during a natural disaster, access to medicines can literally be limited by impassable roads. During an infectious disease epidemic, there might not be enough vaccines stockpiled for everyone at risk. When it comes to women’s reproductive health here in the U.S., “access” takes on a more complex meaning. In our prosperous nation, the issue isn’t the supply of contraceptives, or even demand.

From our point of view, true access in the context of women’s reproductive health means that every woman, regardless of where she lives, how much money she makes, or her health insurance status, should be able to choose if and when to have a baby. However, the reality is that not every woman in the United States has this choice.

Disparities in contraceptive access occur for many reasons, such as levels of provider training. However, one major challenge persists – the most effective forms of contraception according to the CDC, long-acting reversible contraceptives or LARCs (including IUDs), are expensive and cost-prohibitive for too many women. This is particularly true for those without health insurance and with low incomes, who are among the most affected by unplanned pregnancies. This issue persists even though we see decreases in both unplanned pregnancy and healthcare costs when women can choose the most effective forms of birth control.

As leaders of mission-driven, nonprofit organizations, it’s part of our goal to sustain the supply of effective contraception for women who are not guaranteed access – such as the nearly 14 million women who are uninsured in America.

Empowering every woman to space their children or avoid a pregnancy they neither desire nor plan has profoundly positive effects on the course of their individual lives. Why? For many reasons, including that unplanned pregnancies are often associated with negative outcomes such as premature birth, maternal depression, and other lifelong health, economic, and societal difficulties.

So, what are we going to do about it? To start, our organizations are joining forces to donate Medicines360’s hormonal IUD free of charge to selected clinics that serve women who cannot obtain the effective contraception through private insurance, Medicaid, or other public funding.

We’re targeting clinics in states across the country, starting with Virginia, Texas, Colorado and Kentucky, all of which have populations of women who need and deserve access to reliable contraceptive options. Our motivation to increase access across the country stems from the fact that more than 19 million women in the United States live in so-called “contraceptive deserts,” where no access exists to publicly funded clinics providing the full range of FDA-approved contraceptive methods. We cannot allow such disparities to continue and we’re hopeful our efforts can help overcome structural barriers surrounding provider training, patient education and advocacy, so that all women have full reign over their lives and healthcare.

This venture marks the first consistent supply of contraceptives offered through Direct Relief, and the demand that led to this joint program was strong evidence of the ongoing, unmet needs in women’s health. We have long sought to collaborate in ways that enable increased access to healthcare products and services for people who need it most. In 2018, women in our own country are among them.

The profound benefits of expanding access to contraceptive choices are crystal clear, and consequences of inaction and maintaining the status quo are widespread and unacceptable. That’s why we’re looking to leaders from across the industry to step up and help find ways to offer all women the full range of contraceptive options. Count us in.

The post Redefining Access for Women in America appeared first on Direct Relief.

Perhaps inevitable that the marketing phenomenon of “Black Friday” for holiday shopping deals begat “Small Business Saturday,” which in turn spurred “Cyber Monday” and then “Giving Tuesday,” a day urging people to make a charitable contribution to a nonprofit of their choosing.

Making a charitable donation is a purely voluntary act of generosity, and if people are motivated and able to participate in Giving Tuesday, that’s great. But that’s true of any gift of any size on any day – it’s always inspiring. And motivating. And it’s meaningful in a way that transcends our ability to hashtag or bumper sticker or, really, even convey thanks in a manner that’s deserved.

Particularly over the past year and recent days of historic humanitarian emergencies, Direct Relief has the rare privilege of seeing extraordinary, unexpected, and even breathtaking acts of generosity and giving from people just trying to help others less fortunate than they are and trusting Direct Relief to do just that with their money.

For that, we are extraordinarily grateful, and we work hard every day to honor those acts of giving, with deep appreciation and knowledge that such voluntary acts of generosity fuel every single thing Direct Relief does.

We love the idea of Giving Tuesday, but something important seems easily lost in the shuffle if the wonderful act of charitable giving becomes distilled to “give more, now” – similar to what can be lost if thoughtful gift giving gets supplanted with shopping excess.

That’s why, this #GivingTuesday, we’re also celebrating #GratefulTuesday – to recognize you and everyone else who gives so much, and those with whom we work in all 50 states and around the world. It’s all for the simple purpose of helping people overcome big challenges to their health and often lives so they can experience the joys of life and a chance to fulfill their potential.

@DirectReliefhas the rare privilege of witnessing extraordinary acts of generosity on a daily basis. That’s why this #GivingTuesday is dedicated to those who give so much of themselves to help others. #GratefulTuesday https://t.co/mKbHPzMCu6

— Direct Relief (@DirectRelief) November 27, 2018

If no one else knows or cares that, for Direct Relief, #GivingTuesday is also #GratefulTuesday, that’s just fine.

We want you to know.

Thanks for being part of Direct Relief.

The post #GratefulTuesday: Dedicating This #GivingTuesday to Those Who Give appeared first on Direct Relief.

The series of biggest-ever hurricanes were interspersed with the biggest-in-a-century earthquake in Mexico (followed by another smaller-scale but more damaging Mexico quake), and followed in turn by the most deadly wildfires in California history in Sonoma, and a series of Southern California fires that included the largest-ever-by-size. Our organization was asked to help in each situation, and we have, which is why I have been in each place, multiple times, over the past six months.

My familiarity with emergency situations and friendship with those whose sustained efforts in their aftermath our organization supports has provided a rare privilege in life. I’ve encountered far more poignant examples of leadership, selflessness, brilliance, courage, and compassion than I would have ever found had that been a conscious effort, which it hasn’t.

Unfortunately, none of that mattered much early Tuesday morning, when at 3:30 a.m. with rain falling hard around our Montecito home as I was checking downspouts, I heard an earthly rumbling sound, but at an unearthly amplified volume, and realized that I was in a moment of the type whose immediate aftermath I was familiar…

(Editor’s note: This column was originally published in the Sacramento Bee on Jan. 12, 2018.)

Continue reading at SacBee.com.

The post My Disaster Relief Agency is Based Near Montecito. Now Disaster Has Hit Home. appeared first on Direct Relief.

Since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita 12 years ago, Direct Relief has annually pre-positioned specially designed emergency health stockpiles to care for displaced residents. These stockpiles were sent to nonprofit community health center partners throughout Texas and other states subject to hurricanes. Eleven of the emergency modules were deployed to Texas sites three months ago, and the Galveston County Health District already has deployed theirs for local residents. An additional hurricane pack was deployed to the same health district for their coastal health & wellness clinic last week as the storm approached and is being delivered by FedEx to the clinic as they open a second shelter site.

We’re preparing to deliver basic medical supplies and medications to #HurricaneHarvey shelters.

Thanks to @DirectRelief for the supplies! pic.twitter.com/yZEiFyhSOv

— Galveston County Health District (@GCHDinfo) August 25, 2017

At least five people are reported dead as a result of the storms, and emergency responders reported more than 1,000 water rescues throughout Saturday night and Sunday morning, according to the National Weather Service. A public hospital in Harris County, which includes Houston, was evacuated due to power outages Sunday, and many roadways across the state, including major freeways in Houston and surrounding areas, are flooded, preventing people from leaving high-water areas. Heavy rains are anticipated to continue throughout the week, with some areas expected to receive up to 50 inches of rain.

Direct Relief staff have been in Texas since last week and Direct Relief is coordinating with the Texas Association of Community Health Centers, whose member health centers operate more than 300 health sites throughout the state, providing primary care services to more than 1.2 million residents annually. Direct Relief has worked closely with the TACHC and its members for the past 12 years and has furnished more than $61.5 million in medical material aid and financial assistance to over 200 health centers and free clinics in the state.

Throughout the Hurricane Harvey response, Direct Relief has also been communicating with the National Association of Community Health Centers, the National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics, the Lone Star Charitable Clinic Association, the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters, as well as local public health officials.

“Direct Relief is deeply concerned for our friends in Texas and understands from past experience how this massively disruptive situation puts many more people at risk of chronic health conditions that are not managed as they are evacuated,” said Direct Relief President and CEO Thomas Tighe. “As always, the priority during the emergency is the safe evacuation and shelter of those in harm’s way, so we are mobilizing rapidly to avert the serious health complications that arise rapidly if not addressed.”

The post Direct Relief Makes $100 Million in Medical Inventories Available to Assist Texas in Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey appeared first on Direct Relief.

Direct Relief has long provided humanitarian support to each of the countries on both an ongoing basis and in response to emergencies.

In response to increased requests for assistance, Direct Relief’s privately funded humanitarian health assistance activities have expanded significantly over the past five years – both within the U.S. and globally – and has included more than $400 million to these five countries.

The delegation – initial members of a Direct Relief “Consulate Club” – also visited the site of Direct Relief’s new distribution facility and offices that are under construction, which are designed to meet both federal requirements related to the storage and handling of prescription medications and ensure that Direct Relief maintains its unique accreditation among charitable organizations to store and distribute such products in all 50 U.S. states.

The new 155,000-square-foot facility will serve as the distribution hub for prescription medications, vaccines, biologic therapies, supplies and over-the-counter health commodities that Direct Relief furnishes to colleague nonprofit health facilities and public health institutions in all 50 U.S. states and over 80 countries globally for people in need who otherwise lack access to essential resources for their health and well-being.

Direct Relief Chairman Dr. Angel Iscovich and Vice Chairman Mark Schwartz welcomed the delegation and led the briefing and discussions that covered a broad range of topics, emphasizing Direct Relief’s ongoing commitment to provide humanitarian assistance to those in need in the most efficient manner possible, to the highest standards of care and regulatory compliance, and consistent with the organization’s apolitical and secular character.

The post Latin American Diplomatic Delegation Visits Direct Relief, Tours New Distribution Facility appeared first on Direct Relief.

The model of Direct Relief’s humanitarian assistance program, which provides essential medications and commodities at no charge to people in need, is heavily operational in nature.  Functionally, Direct Relief serves as a humanitarian supply chain with unique-among-nonprofits accreditation to handle prescription medications and medical supplies.  The work is measured constantly, in real-time on dozens of factors — to improve and make necessary operational adjustments, boost efficiency, ensure financial integrity, comply with increasingly intense regulatory scrutiny and, ultimately, ensure patient health and safety.

So, everything is counted (and validated), and a quick summary of the highest-level numbers reflects a highly productive 2016.

Since January, through 11,832 deliveries totaling 1,915 tons, Direct Relief has furnished $845 million in essential medications, vaccines, instruments, and supplies – with each item in each delivery responding to a specific request and needed by people otherwise without access to it.  To each of the 50 United States, and more than 70 countries globally.

Numbers, however impressive, are neither the purpose of Direct Relief nor particularly inspiring.  What the numbers represent is.

A humbling daily antidote for cynicism.

As a privately funded charitable organization, every Direct Relief activity – and every person whose life is saved or health improved, every health worker able to diagnose and provide care because of it – stems from voluntary acts, personal decisions, and generosity that no one was required to do.  What that means is hard to count.  But it counts.  It also provides special meaning to the work every day, and a strong motivation to do it right and efficiently.

Among other things, it’s a humbling daily antidote for cynicism, which is not a recognized public health problem but often seems to be a good candidate.

This year also has provided a clear reminder of the importance of Direct Relief’s apolitical character, non-reliance on government funding, and simply retaining clear focus on the humanitarian purpose of serving those in need.

Direct Relief’s lifeline has been extended in 2016, but it’s been stretched.

To dedicated doctors caring for Syrian refugees in surrounding countries and for people displaced within Syria. To nonprofit community health centers caring for their neighbors displaced by historic flooding in Louisiana and in West Virginia. To always-pressed local organizations in Haiti and other Caribbean nations that were already struggling with the onset of the Zika virus before getting slammed by Hurricane Matthew. These incidents make the news. Most of Direct Relief’s work addresses situations that don’t, but are crises all the same for those in them.

On every day in 2016:

In Liberia and Sierra Leone, where prenatal care services have gone down and maternal mortality has gone up since the Ebola crisis, more than 100,000 expectant or recent moms took a prenatal vitamin that Direct Relief provided.

And across the U.S., thousands of people without insurance or funds were able to take a prescription medication they needed but could not afford — because those medications were provided at no charge by a Direct Relief-supported community health center or clinic.

Direct Relief also provided thousands of cervical cancer screenings and vaccinations against this terrible disease for women in Peru, Haiti, and Nepal.

In addition to providing more essential medical material resources than ever before, this year Direct Relief furnished over $2 million in critically needed financial support to more than two dozen partner organizations, in both the US and internationally, to respond to crises, rebuild damaged facilities, provide training for frontline health workers, and extend care to more patients who lack other options.

Direct Relief is a support organization, but exists only because of private supporters — each of whom is owed the deepest thanks.

The post 2016: The Year in Review (so far) appeared first on Direct Relief.

Direct Relief was among the many groups to which people contributed. While that in itself is inspiring, it’s also a poignant reminder of the special obligation that exists when people give money to Direct Relief to help those affected by a particular event.

Direct Relief has a specialized focus and nearly 70 years’ experience providing ongoing and emergency humanitarian assistance (in the form of medications, medical and surgical supplies, and other health-related commodities) to local organizations. That was the lens through which we saw events in Nepal, where we had been working for years supporting committed, impressive local groups doing important work to improve the health and lives of people who face all sorts of health risks, have few resources, and little access to needed care.

The enormity of the immediate human tragedy was heartbreaking to everyone who saw the images. It was only made worse knowing that the initial earthquake, in a moment, simultaneously caused an increase in the need for care while destroying so much of the already limited capacity to provide it.

Direct Relief doesn’t receive government funding and, since our organization’s ongoing work in Nepal had never received specific patronage or dedicated financial support, it has been among the many things our organization pays for through general (or unrestricted in nonprofit-speak) contributions. Donors that make such gifts essentially permit our organization to use their funds however best, in our judgment, they will make a difference. A high degree of trust is implicit in these gifts, without which Direct Relief could not function. The immediate response to the earthquake began only because of such support and, as always, without the knowledge of whether the event would result in additional donations. We hoped it would, and immediately provided a designation on our website’s donation page to ensure that any potential donor clearly understood how to make a restricted gift for Nepal if that was the intent and, also, that Direct Relief would use any such contribution only for Nepal.

I note this because, as events unfolded, an outpouring of private philanthropic support did occur. For Nepal.

Direct Relief received $6,559,066 in financial contributions for Nepal from people and businesses and organizations. Thousands of those who made contributions also sent very personal, often emotion-laden comments as to why they were making a gift to help in Nepal, including one heartrending online gift of $20 from a Nepali citizen living on the outskirts of Kathmandu.

Direct Relief also received many other in-kind donations of medications and other health commodities and services that were requested by partners — including two humanitarian airlifts from FedEx – which allowed Direct Relief’s support to be far more extensive than would have been possible had the funds been used to purchase those essential goods and services.

As the one-year mark approached, we prepared a detailed report to explain – importantly, to people in Nepal for whose benefit we received the contributions, as well as to donors who made them — what, how much, where, why they’ve been used. We sent it to the Nepali government and partner organizations in Nepal at the same time we sent it to all those who’d made contributions and posted it, so we were pleased when Charity Navigator conducted a survey to ask many of the same questions.

As a technical, legal matter, the receipt of restricted contributions to help in Nepal didn’t make Direct Relief a trustee for people in Nepal with regard to the use of the money. But, on a personal level, the obligation feels something like that, particularly when people making gifts share their personal motivation with such emotion. I doubt very few if any of them were made with tax-optimization in mind or in consultation with a tax adviser. In Nepal, as in other events that create similar dynamics, receiving funds from one group to help others creates an obligation on both sides, which we continue to try to figure out how best to do.

Several years ago, following another emergency in which Direct Relief became the focal point for significant charitable contributions, the amount of restricted-by-donor cash contributions for that event exceeded our entire planned operating budget for the year. When I mentioned this had happened to our then board chair who was onsite handling phone calls, she said, “Well, this isn’t our money. The people calling are giving money to Direct Relief, but it’s for the people they’re seeing on TV living through hell.” Simply said, and exactly right – then, and in every similar event that inspires private giving to help the people or country that experiences a disaster. The Asian tsunami. Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy. The earthquakes in Haiti, Pakistan, and Indonesia. Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. The recent cyclone in Fiji, and current flooding in Houston and earthquake recovery ongoing in Ecuador. And Nepal.

For Direct Relief and all American nonprofits, honoring donor intent has long been a bedrock principle – but we recognize it’s difficult to assess adherence to, since the only standardized basis of comparison is a single, lengthy IRS form that all groups submit annually and requires groups like Charity Navigator to interpret and make the contents understandable for the public. It’s impossible to honor donor intent without giving donors the opportunity to express that intent. That’s why seemingly little things, like the specific language on website donation pages and in solicitations are so important – particularly in high-profile, deeply compelling emergencies such as occurred in Nepal after last year’s tragic earthquakes.

But, the anniversary of the Nepal tragedy also reminds us of the special obligation that Direct Relief has to the people of Nepal, having been entrusted with funds directed to our organization for their benefit. It seems an important – maybe the most important – obligation, and we hope we get it right, even though it’s different from the legal requirements and norms so obviously essential to inform those who made generous contributions that allowed Direct Relief to assist as it has and will continue to do.

The post “It’s Not our Money” appeared first on Direct Relief.

Direct Relief’s policy regarding designated contributions for Ebola response activities is simple: Direct Relief will use all contributions designated for “Ebola Relief” directly for relief and recovery efforts related to the Ebola Crisis.

Direct Relief recognizes the importance of enabling donors to communicate their intentions regarding donations and explaining how the organization carefully accounts for and uses designated contributions to honor the donors’ intentions. Direct Relief takes several steps to ensure that both donors’ intentions and the organization’s use of contributions are clear.

Ensuring Donor Intent

To ensure that donors communicate their intention regarding their contribution, we note that Direct Relief’s online donation page requires that donors consider the options of “wherever needed most” or to designate their contribution by choosing from a drop-down menu that includes “Ebola Response in West Africa” among several other particular activities or areas in which Direct Relief works and to which donors may also elect to restrict their gift. Other methods of contributions, such as by check or wire transfer that include an “Ebola” or similar notation in the check memo line or accompanying correspondence also will be considered as instruction to restrict the gift for this particular response effort.

Detailed Accounting for Ebola Relief Funds

An internal fund is created with all designated contributions, and all expenditures related to the response are recorded for both internal management and external reporting purposes. Independently audited financial statements are prepared and published annually, but Direct Relief will share current information on its website as events unfold regarding programmatic activities and expenditures.

No Ebola Relief Funds are used for Fundraising Expenses

100 percent of Direct Relief’s fundraising expenses are paid by a bequest. This means that no portion of any contribution for Ebola-response efforts (or any other contribution) will be used for fundraising purposes.

What Restricted Funds May Be Used For

Ebola relief contributions will be used only for Ebola-related programmatic costs and administrative expenses directly related to the Ebola relief activity. Programmatic costs include those related to purchasing, storing, transporting, and distributing essential medical material to affected areas and the costs of programmatic staff and related travel for Ebola relief-assistance functions. Directly related administrative expenses include credit-card processing fees associated with the receipt of contributions; accounting fees associated with managing Ebola relief funds; postage related to issuing receipts to Ebola relief donors; banking fees related to wire transfers of Ebola-related donations; warehousing and packaging of medical material; and IT support costs that are necessary to conduct Ebola-related programmatic activity (such as inventory management of medical material being provided in the relief effort).

General, unrestricted financial support is essential for Direct Relief to fulfill any of its deeply compelling humanitarian activities, including being able to respond rapidly to any emergency as the organization has done in the ongoing Ebola outbreak. Indeed, much of Direct Relief’s current Ebola-response activities have been guided by and in support of key partners that Direct Relief already was supporting in the affected countries — with such general funds – and are now playing central, critical roles in response to the crisis. That is why such unrestricted contributions always are needed, deeply appreciated, and enable Direct Relief to assist people in many places and situations that do not make the news.

However, Direct Relief is obligated to – and will always – honor the intent of a donor-designated financial contribution, including, obviously, in this instance with regard to Ebola-designated contributions. If a donor were to make a clearly restricted gift for a purpose or with a restriction that Direct Relief is not able to fulfill or comply with, Direct Relief will advise the donor of this situation and inquire if other uses may be permitted. If a donor’s intent cannot be met, Direct Relief will offer to direct the gift to another nonprofit able to fulfill the donor’s intent or return the gift.

The post Ebola Outbreak Donation Policy appeared first on Direct Relief.

Direct Relief’s policy regarding designated contributions for the Nepal earthquake is simple: Direct Relief will use all contributions designated for the Nepal Earthquake solely for relief and recovery efforts related to the Nepal Earthquake.

Direct Relief practices have long recognized the importance of enabling donors to communicate their intentions regarding donations and explaining how the organization carefully accounts for and uses designated contributions to honor the donors’ intentions. Direct Relief takes several steps to ensure that both donors’ intentions and the organization’s use of contributions are clear.

Ensuring Donor Intent

To ensure that donors communicate their intention regarding a gift, we note that Direct Relief’s online donation page requires that donors consider the options of “wherever needed most” or to designate their gifts by choosing from a drop-down menu that includes “Nepal Earthquake” as the first item among several other particular activities or areas where Direct Relief works and to which donors may also elect to restrict their gift. Other methods of contributions, such as by check or wire transfer that include an “earthquake” or “Nepal” or similar notation in the check memo line or accompanying correspondence also will be considered as instruction to restrict the gift for this particular response effort.

Detailed Accounting for Nepal Earthquake Funds

An internal fund is created with all designated contributions, and all expenditures related to the Nepal earthquake response are recorded for both internal management and external reporting purposes. Independently audited financial statements are prepared and published annually, but Direct Relief will share current information on its website as events unfold regarding programmatic activities and expenditures.

No Nepal Earthquake Funds are Used for Fundraising Expenses

100 percent of Direct Relief’s fundraising expenses are paid by a bequest. This means that no portion of any Nepal earthquake contribution (or any other contribution) will be used for fundraising purposes.

What Restricted Funds May be Used For

Nepal earthquake contributions will be used only for Nepal earthquake-related programmatic costs and administrative expenses directly related to the earthquake response activity. Programmatic costs include those related to purchasing, storing, transporting, and distributing essential medical material to affected areas and the costs of programmatic staff and related travel for earthquake relief-assistance functions. Directly related administrative expenses include credit-card processing fees associated with the receipt of Nepal earthquake contributions; accounting fees associated with managing Nepal earthquake funds; postage related to issuing receipts to Nepal earthquake donors; banking fees related to wire transfers of Nepal earthquake donations; warehousing and packaging of medical material; and IT support costs that are necessary to conduct Nepal earthquake-related programmatic activity (such as inventory management of medical material being provided in the relief effort).

General, unrestricted financial support is essential for Direct Relief to fulfill any of its deeply humanitarian activities, including being able to respond rapidly to any emergency. Such unrestricted contributions always are needed, deeply appreciated, and enable Direct Relief to assist people in many places and situations that do not make the news.

However, Direct Relief is obligated to – and will always – honor the intent of a donor-designated financial contribution, including, obviously, in this instance with regard to Nepal earthquake contributions. If a donor were to make a clearly restricted gift for a purpose or with a restriction that Direct Relief is not able to fulfill or comply with, Direct Relief will advise the donor of this situation and inquire if other uses may be permitted. In the event that a donor’s intent cannot be met by Direct Relief, the organization would offer to direct the gift to another nonprofit that would be able to fulfill the donor’s intent or return the gift.

The post Nepal Earthquake Donation Policy appeared first on Direct Relief.

On the 50th Anniversary of Health Centers, it is impossible to overstate their profound, positive role in the daily lives of millions of people, in thousands of communities, across every State and territory, and for our country generally.

Health Centers not only erode barriers of cost, insurance, distance, and language for those least able to access care; they save $24 billion each year in reduced hospitalizations and emergency room visits and offer demonstrable proof that accessible, high-quality, and low-cost care and preventive services are more than aspirations – they are essential and can be achieved concurrently.

For fifty years, Health Centers and their staff have reflected the insight that “community” is more than location – it’s the people and social fabric that binds it together – and that “health” involves not only that which can be diagnosed and treated by medical professionals, but many other factors as well. The terms “patient-centered” and “culturally competent” care now exist in the lexicon, but it’s because Health Centers were modelling such behaviors, by design, for decades.

This notion of community health also explains why Health Centers, in times of emergency, invariably serve such an essential and typically overlooked role. Emergencies disproportionately affect people who were vulnerable the day before the emergency occurred. Health Centers know this, because they care for the country’s most vulnerable residents every day. In every major event – from Hurricane Katrina to Sandy, tragic tornadoes in the Midwest and South, and wildfires in the West – Health Centers are indispensable actors as — if not first responders — first receivers of those in need of help.

In international health circles, bold experiments in community health are increasingly given the recognition, attention, and energy they deserve. Examples include the One Million Community Health Workers Campaign led by Jeffery Sachs, the extraordinary efforts of Partners in Health led by Paul Farmer, and Last Mile Health led by Raj Panjabi.

So why, in the U.S., for all of the energy and attention devoted to healthcare and healthcare reform, has the similarly crucial role that community health centers and community health workers have played for the past 50 years been largely overlooked?

Through a decade-long partnership with the National Association of Community Health Centers, Direct Relief has provided over $500 million in private philanthropic support to America’s Health Centers and their patients.  This has been a rare privilege and has only deepened the commitment to do more.

From the perspective of a privately funded humanitarian organization that supports community health worldwide, both philanthropic and public support will find no better investment than in America’s Health Centers in the years ahead.

The post A Bold Experiment: 50 Years of Community Health in the U.S. appeared first on Direct Relief.

We recognize, with the deepest of gratitude, that Direct Relief was able to help more people and to do so efficiently because of the expanded participation and support of businesses, organizations, and individuals whose names are listed in this report. Participation comes in many sizes and forms, but each reflects a decision that was not required by the person who made it, which adds a special meaning to Direct Relief’s activities.

By the financial indicators on which Direct Relief and all nonprofits are in part measured, and included in annual reports such as this, the FY 2014 results were very positive. Overall, the organization provided over $500 million in assistance for the first time ever in a 12-month period, which represented an increase of more than 40 percent from the previous year. Importantly, Direct Relief’s multi-year investments in technology and systems, which have been critical to how the organization provides assistance, also enabled the expanded efforts to be done with greater efficiency, transparency, and precision than ever before.

However, why Direct Relief exists—the reason it was founded in 1948 and its simple humanitarian purpose—is unchanged and central to both the day-to-day and long-term activities.

Health remains fundamental for every person to realize his or her potential and enjoy the wonders of life. Preventive care and access to care when sickness or injury occurs is essential to  health. Each day, millions of people in the United States and around the world confront severe health risks and high barriers to needed care and medications because they are without the means to pay. And each year, disasters and other emergencies create urgent health risks for millions of people, particularly those of limited means who face severe challenges as a matter of course and were most vulnerable the day before an emergency struck.

Direct Relief’s simple, humanitarian mission is to provide lifesaving medical aid to people in urgent need. And the organization’s approach is to work with those in the communities, helping them
improve and expand their services by providing resources to which they otherwise have no access. This approach is necessary for the long-term goals of improving health in the hardest-pressed
communities, informing emergency response efforts, and making the most at-risk communities more resilient.

Direct Relief has many different partners, and one simple cause. As a privately-funded charitable organization, Direct Relief is continually inspired by the involvement of thousands of individuals, companies, foundations, and organizations whose involvement is essential in ways big and small. Direct Relief’s tradition of adapting new technologies and modern business practices for humanitarian purposes continued over the course of the past year.

During FY 2014, Direct Relief received two honors that reflect the unique span of partners with which Direct Relief is privileged to work. CECP (formerly known as the Committee to Encourage
Corporate Philanthropy), the organization founded by the late actor Paul Newman, honored Direct Relief with its Directors’ Award as the leading example of how a nonprofit organization can work with businesses on a social good. Weeks later, Direct Relief received from the National Association of Community Health Centers—the organization that represents the network of nonprofit facilities in the U.S. that serve 23 million people (1 in 15 persons in the country)—its highest award for the unwavering support that Direct Relief has provided to health centers nationwide.

Both awards are important to share with you and all of Direct Relief’s supporters, since it was your participation that earned them. Moreover, they reflect how Direct Relief is trying to bring
together the critically important perspectives—from the highest level of both public-service, public-health focused health nonprofits as well as from the highest level of business. Together, these
perspectives, and those of individuals who also participate, can create much more significant advances toward the common goal of improved health and opportunity for the least fortunate among us, which is Direct Relief’s longstanding vision.

Please accept our deepest thanks, again, for your involvement in Direct Relief’s important humanitarian work that helps people facing severe challenges live, be healthier, and realize the inherent
wonders of life.

The post Annual Report: Fiscal Year 2014 appeared first on Direct Relief.

Annie Maxwell, our former colleague at Direct Relief, a Santa Barbara native, and a dear friend, continues to make us proud as the Skoll Global Threats Fund’s new president.

“President Maxwell” always sounded right to me, as I’m sure it has for everyone who’s had the privilege to work alongside her – from Santa Barbara High, or the University of Michigan – where, as a full-scholarship Division I athlete captaining the women’s volleyball team, she somehow managed to jam in a Master’s from the Ford School – or D.C. during her stint as a White House Fellow.

It’s a great choice, an amazing honor, and very good for the world.

-Thomas Tighe

“With experience in government, international civil society, and the NGO sector, Annie brings to the role a nuanced understanding of the ways in which organizations work, as well as a capacity to build the networks that are critical for success against the global threats the world is facing… She is the ideal person to help the Skoll Global Threats Fund evolve to the next stage.” – Jeff Skoll, chairman and founder

>>Read the full announcement from the Skoll Global Threats Fund

The post Direct Relief Alum Annie Maxwell Named President of Skoll Global Threats Fund appeared first on Direct Relief.

As likely the only one at last week’s Games for Change festival in New York City who played “Pong” when it first came out (at a now long-closed arcade in Palo Alto, where I grew up), I was an unlikely speaker at the event.  But what a treat it was to glimpse the state of the art digital gaming industry, meet the astounding talent involved in it, and see the energy being harnessed for a broad range of great causes, including Direct Relief.

With the go-go digital gaming industry generating $20 billion in revenue and reportedly engaging 59 percent of Americans, it’s easy to overlook the industry’s current significant and potential profound contributions to social and humanitarian causes.  Direct Relief has been keenly aware of both since receiving an offer to help from Zynga three years ago following the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

The excellent Abby Speight of Zynga.org, the charitable arm of the online gaming company and a sponsor of the festival, led a “Designing for Good” plenary panel (of which I was a panelist) discussing two basic tracks of gaming and social causes:

• leveraging commercially successful games to support charitable causes, as Zynga has now done with Direct Relief on multiple occasions to support humanitarian health assistance in emergencies and Pixelberry has done with its “High School Story” to generate awareness and funds for important anti-bullying efforts;  and
• designing games themselves as a means of educating, training, advocating for, or otherwise advancing something good (the Minecraft creators helping the United Nations engage communities so they can plan better public spaces, SIMS working with GlassLab to accelerate new educational tools for students) or avoiding something bad.

It’s impossible not to be impressed by the astounding creative, engineering, design, research, and analytical talent that goes into making a good game – and it seemed that most attendees had one or more in scary abundance – and all the business acumen obviously inherent in a $20 billion-and-growing industry.  But, it’s also refreshing to know that the current of insight into what makes people tick, engage, and have fun is being increasingly channeled to help people, issues, and causes that don’t lend themselves easily to games that are engaging and fun.

Zynga’s efforts have encouraged 250,000 people to support Direct Relief’s humanitarian health efforts through the purchase of low-cost virtual goods embedded in their games, and the nearly $1.3 million raised has translated directly into people who are sick, hurt, or at very high risk receiving medications they need and otherwise would not have received.  They’ve also made Direct Relief’s work visible to millions of players worldwide, in a soft-touch way that doesn’t interfere with either the company’s interests or the players’ enjoyment.

And, just this week, the good people at  Humble Bundle, which allows consumers to pay what they want and support charity for games developed by independent game creators, is channeling all such charitable donations to Direct Relief.

As online gaming evolves, it’s nice to see that the evolution of the virtual worlds being created have embedded within them an increasing recognition of the wonderful qualities of compassion and empathy and a desire to help people in the physical world, which they’re doing already in very creative ways.  It’s a cause for hope and, in Direct Relief’s case, for deep thanks.

The post Virtual Goods to Actual Good: Gamers & Direct Relief appeared first on Direct Relief.

Since 2009, Direct Relief has been the sole U.S. nonprofit organization accredited by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy as a Verified-Accredited Wholelsale Distributor (VAWD) and the only nonprofit licensed to distribute prescription medications in all 50 states.

Direct Relief’s charitable medicines program is now the largest of its kind in the country, working with a growing network of more than 1,200 nonprofit health centers and free/charitable clinics across the U.S. that provide care for approximately 10 million people, the majority of whom are low-income and have traditionally lacked health insurance. These facilities serve as a safety net for people who would otherwise fall through the gaps.

Among the many questions presented by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is whether and how it will affect the need for private charitable efforts, like those of Direct Relief, within the U.S. A recent RAND Corporation study illuminates the gaps that will exist for the projected 30 million people “left behind” by the ACA.

Read the report: “Who Does the Affordable Care Act Leave Behind?”

Key findings from the RAND study:

• The Congressional Budget Office projects that 30 million residents will remain uninsured after the major provisions of the ACA take full effect.
• A substantial percentage of those remaining uninsured will not have access to public assistance, meaning state Medicaid programs or tax credits to purchase private coverage on the health insurance exchanges.
• Those most at-risk for having no access to more affordable health insurance after the ACA takes full effect include low-income adults in states that do not expand their Medicaid programs, and low to moderate income individuals with relatively expensive employer offers.

The post RAND: ACA Leaves 30 Million People Behind appeared first on Direct Relief.

Direct Relief’s policy regarding designated contributions for Typhoon Haiyan is simple: Direct Relief will use all contributions designated for “Typhoon Relief” or “Typhoon Haiyan” solely for relief and recovery efforts related to the Typhoon.

Direct Relief practices have long recognized the importance of enabling donors to communicate their intentions regarding donations and explaining how the organization carefully accounts for and uses designated contributions to honor the donors’ intentions. Direct Relief takes several steps to ensure that both donors’ intentions and the organization’s use of contributions are clear.

Ensuring Donor Intent

To ensure that donors communicate their intention regarding a gift, we note that Direct Relief’s online donation page requires that donors consider the options of “wherever needed most” or to designate their gifts by choosing from a drop-down menu that includes “Typhoon Haiyan Relief” as the first item among several other particular activities or areas in which Direct Relief works and to which donors may also elect to restrict their gift. Other methods of contributions, such as by check or wire transfer that include a “typhoon” or “Haiyan” or similar notation in the check memo line or accompanying correspondence also will be considered as instruction to restrict the gift for this particular response effort.

Detailed Accounting for Typhoon Funds

An internal fund is created with all designated contributions, and all expenditures related to the typhoon response are recorded for both internal management and external reporting purposes. Independently audited financial statements are prepared and published annually, but Direct Relief will share current information on its website as events unfold regarding programmatic activities and expenditures.

No Typhoon Funds are Used for Fundraising Expenses

100 percent of Direct Relief’s fundraising expenses are paid by a bequest. This means that no portion of any Typhoon contribution (or any other contribution) will be used for fundraising purposes.

What Restricted Funds May Be Used For

Typhoon contributions will be used only for typhoon-related programmatic costs and administrative expenses directly related to the typhoon activity. Programmatic costs include those related to purchasing, storing, transporting, and distributing essential medical material to affected areas and the costs of programmatic staff and related travel for typhoon relief-assistance functions. Directly-related administrative expenses include credit-card processing fees associated with the receipt of typhoon contributions; accounting fees associated with managing typhoon funds; postage related to issuing receipts to typhoon donors; banking fees related to wire transfers of typhoon donations; warehousing and packaging of medical material; and IT support costs that are necessary to conduct typhoon-related programmatic activity (such as inventory management of medical material being provided in the relief effort).

General, unrestricted financial support is essential for Direct Relief to fulfill any of its deeply compelling humanitarian activities, including being able to respond rapidly to any emergency as the organization has done in Typhoon Haiyan. Such unrestricted contributions always are needed, deeply appreciated, and enable Direct Relief to assist people in many places and situations that do not make the news.

However, Direct Relief is obligated to – and will always – honor the intent of a donor-designated financial contribution, including, obviously, in this instance with regard to Typhoon Haiyan contributions. If a donor were to make a clearly restricted gift for a purpose or with a restriction that Direct Relief is not able to fulfill or comply with, Direct Relief will advise the donor of this situation and inquire if other uses may be permitted. In the event that a donor’s intent cannot be met by Direct Relief, the organization would offer to direct the gift to another nonprofit that would be able to fulfill the donor’s intent or return the gift.

The post Typhoon Haiyan Donation Policy appeared first on Direct Relief.

As the Affordable Care Act (ACA) implementation kicks off its critical phase this week, one way  to assess whether the intended benefits are being realized is to look at how these nonprofit safety-net facilities fare, since they have been serving people with limited means and no insurance – many of the same people intended to be covered by insurance under the ACA. And the facilities are expected to receive even more patients as events unfold.

Obvious, if perhaps obscured in the political conversation, is that health insurance itself is neither health care, a guarantee of access to health care, nor, fundamentally, good health. If facilities or providers do not accept a particular insurance plan for whatever reason – most likely because it is not considered to provide sufficient reimbursement for care – a newly insured person will not necessarily have more or any different access to health care services.

Nonprofit health centers and charitable clinics provide access to primary and preventive health services in a nondiscriminatory way. For all the many, intense disputes that continue to exist about the ACA, virtually none exists that more of these types of services are needed to improve health and reduce costs. If, as intended, broader insurance coverage means that health centers and charitable clinics receive payment for patients they have always cared for even when uninsured, the proven benefits of providing such access and care will be expanded for millions of people. Alternatively, if expanding insurance coverage becomes a balloon-squeezing exercise paid for by reducing reimbursements for care, the intended benefits of expanded access to care may be elusive.

So, as the ACA unfolds – differently in each state, with a big bet on insurance products and markets to expand access, improve results, and reduce costs – the status of these facilities, which serve more than 1 in 15 people in the United States today, will be a reasonable proxy to assess how things are going and whether the legislation’s broad purposes of better, more affordable, more accessible health care and better health are being advanced.

Direct Relief will be publishing its annual State of the Healthcare Safety Net report in the coming weeks to highlight this particular, important issue.

Charitable efforts such as those conducted by Direct Relief to help patients obtain medications they need but cannot afford and support locally run nonprofit clinics that serve vulnerable people typically exist for  people not served through either commercial activity or government programs. These efforts have been expanding rapidly in the past few years to fill very large needs otherwise unfilled. With high hopes that such needs will be lessened, Direct Relief will continue to support people that will likely continue to need help with support to the safety-net facilities that provide it.

The post Canaries in the Affordable Care Act Coal Mine appeared first on Direct Relief.

But another critical enabling factor was the tremendous support that FedEx provided – as it has in virtually every other major emergency over the past several years – with urgency and its legendary efficiency and speed, but without any fanfare.

Over the past four years, FedEx has made more than 20,000 deliveries of prescription medications and supplies from Direct Relief to U.S. nonprofit clinics and facilities, to all 50 states – at no charge. This has been essential in helping Direct Relief create and build out a nationwide program – that is transparent, efficient, and precise – as a way to provide charitable medications for people who need them at over one thousand nonprofit community clinics and health centers.

For obvious reasons as well as significantly extensive legal ones, the safe, secure, and proper handling and distribution of medications is necessary at all times. This remains true, and perhaps even more so, in emergencies such as the one this week. Even on a good day through normal commercial channels, delivering specific medications that require specialized cold-chain handling 15 hours after being ordered involves a lot of things to work in sync. We felt very fortunate to be able to do so this week during in an unfolding emergency and simply to help people living through an awful situation, but we also know that it was possible only because of the distribution backbone and know-how of FedEx.

Direct Relief’s emergency medical aid this week also included for the first time a new technology that we have been discussing with FedEx and solves a longstanding problem of knowing the temperature status of material when it is en route. We included in our emergency shipments of tetanus and TDAP vaccine, which must be maintained in a narrow cold temperature range, these new devices (SenseAware powered by FedEx) which monitor temperature, location, exposure to light, and other data points in near real-time to so medical aid can be shipped and tracked much more effectively.

This type and level of information always has been desired, but the technology simply hasn’t been viable.

The logistics staff at Direct Relief was trained on the devices last week and was able to use the devices for tornado relief efforts. The devices were packed along with the vaccine in specialized cold-chain boxes with refrigerated gel packs, and the team was able to monitor the temperature of the vaccines in near real-time to ensure that control was maintained at all times. We were very pleased that the first use of this worked so well and that it was available to assist people in Oklahoma.

We recognize that the tragedy and devastation that the people in Oklahoma have experienced, as well as the very tough road ahead, will require much more assistance of other types than Direct Relief will be able to provide, given our organization’s focus on helping those who with health and medical challenges. But, with regard to the health issues and access to needed medications and supplies, Direct Relief is deeply committed to providing as much help as efficiently as possible for people affected by this tragedy. The assistance from FedEx is an amazing force-multiplier for Direct Relief’s efforts and everyone else that has responded so generously to help.

The post Partnership with FedEx enabled rapid response in Oklahoma tornado response appeared first on Direct Relief.

100 percent of funds donated for Haiti will be used exclusively for programmatic activities related to Haiti. None of the funds donated for Haiti will be used to pay for fundraising or administrative expenses, or for programmatic activities in other places. Direct Relief is able to do this because fundraising and administrative expenses are being covered by the proceeds of a generous bequest received three years ago.

General donations make it possible for Direct Relief to respond to this and other emergencies, as well as conduct our ongoing humanitarian health work around the world and in the United States. All of these activities are compelling and important to serve people who need help.

Direct Relief is committed to honoring donors’ intentions. Direct Relief will not redirect any funds that we receive for Haiti to any other purpose or area. There is no fine print or qualification – if a donation is designated by a donor for Haiti, it is treated as a restricted contribution and will be used only to assist Haiti. Consistent with our standard practices, an internal fund has been established to account for, track, and report all such donations into the Haiti fund, and expenses from it.

To ensure that we understand a donor’s intention, Direct Relief’s online donations page requires a donor to select among options before completing a donation. Also, we have asked that donors sending in donations by mail indicate “Haiti” if they wish to designate their donation. Donations made via text donations (by texting “Give10” to 20222) are restricted contributions for Haiti. This is clearly stated on the confirming message before a text donation is completed.

In addition to financial contributions described above, an element of Direct Relief’s longstanding program model also involves the provision of medical materials, including medicines, equipment, surgical supplies, nutritionals, and other in-kind medical resources. A large percentage of these materials are donated by the manufacturers, many of which we have worked with for decades.

As the sole nonprofit organization licensed as a pharmacy in all 50 U.S. states and approved by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy as a Verified Accredited Wholesale Distributor, we must comply with stringent requirements in the U.S. and internationally. We only accept material that is suitable, and only provide it when it is appropriate for the circumstances and requested by a qualified partner organization that will use them. In accounting for and describing any medical material contributions, the wholesale financial value is used.

Direct Relief’s urgent priority is to assist people in Haiti. In noting these seemingly technical matters, such as internal accounting practices, the distinction between general and restricted contributions, and the valuation methodology assigned to material aid, we wish simply to inform members of the public who have shown such generosity and deserve to know how their contributions will be used.

The post Haiti Earthquake Donation Policy appeared first on Direct Relief.

It is your money, and we want you to understand what we will do with it if you contribute to Direct Relief.

If you designate your contribution for Hurricanes Katrina/Rita, we will use 100 percent of the contribution for expenses directly related to these activities and nothing else. We believe this is a simple concept, but we also think it is important to spell out what exactly it means to us when we receive a donation designated for a specific incident.

Direct Relief never uses a specific tragedy for general fundraising efforts for our organization. We also do not use a specific incident such as the Katrina/Rita emergency to solicit funds for a loosely defined “disaster fund” or a fund “to help these victims and others victims of tragedy.”

This is not because other tragedies deserve less – we have responded to humanitarian crises for 57 years – but because we believe it is wrong to show a picture of current victims in a particular place without committing to help those specific victims with money that is given for their assistance.

We will not use Katrina/Rita funds to pay for any salaries, rent, administrative expenses, or anything else that we had already anticipated in our budget – despite the fact that we are devoting these resources extensively now to the relief effort.

We always have the significant challenge of raising money for these expenses, but we do not believe it is appropriate to cover these pre-existing expenses with money that is clearly intended to help victims of the recent Gulf Coast hurricanes. We don’t consider funds we receive specifically for these incidents “Direct Relief’s money” but rather money people have given to us to do the right thing for victims of these incidents. We believe it is for them and that we are trustees – to both you and them – to make sure it serves them in the most effective way possible.

Here’s what we will spend your money on: We will spend designated donations on new expenses directly related to Katrina/Rita that we have not anticipated in our budget. These expenses will include such things as purchasing medicines that are otherwise not available and packing and shipping costs to health facilities in the region. This is our particular area of expertise and the needs in this area are significant.

If we have available funds, we also will provide cash assistance to front-line health facilities to cover their increased expenses. If what we do ever becomes not what is needed or is otherwise addressed through a better source, we will give the money to a trusted, credible organization in the region that can help address other essential needs for the people.

Direct Relief will absorb all administrative expenses associated with Hurricanes Katrina/Rita contributions, including the processing charge (typically 2-3% range) that we must pay to the credit-card processing company for Katrina/Rita-designated contributions we receive via credit card. This ensures that 100% of your donation is used only for direct expenses related to Hurricane Katrina assistance.

This policy is consistent with our actions following September 11 and the tsunami last December. Those policies are on this website, and you can read about how we spent money in strict accordance with these policies. General undesignated contributions to our organizations are always much needed for us to function. Indeed, because we receive general funds, we have been able to respond fast and extensively to the Katrina emergency.

However, we want any person considering making a contribution specifically for Katrina/Rita to know that we will honor that intent and how we will do so.

Thank you for your generosity.

The post Hurricane Katrina and Rita Donation Policies appeared first on Direct Relief.

In the midst of a profoundly sad moment for millions of people, we at Direct Relief have had the privilege to encounter the enormous compassion and generosity of people around the world who have sought, through us, to assist in some way. Our staff members and dozens of volunteers have answered thousands of calls. The offers of help and financial contributions are deeply humbling and inspiring.

It is being said repeatedly in the media that cash contributions are the best way to help people in South Asia. This is true, and Direct Relief is accepting cash contributions. However, because of the outpouring of generosity and contributions that Direct Relief and it appears many other organizations are receiving, we think it necessary to state very clearly our policy with regard to specifically designated contributions and what we will do with money that we receive that is designated for the tsunami relief efforts.

First, Direct Relief has never used a specific tragedy as a general fundraising opportunity. We will not do so in this instance.

Second, we will establish a separate bank account into which specifically designated funds will be deposited.

Third, we consider the funds that contributed specifically for this disaster to be entrusted to us for the benefit of people whose lives have been tragically affected. The people who have called us, many grieving and emotional about the tragedy, have made it clear that they want their money to assist these victims – not others in other places that we assist who also face extraordinary challenges and are vulnerable. We understand this, and we will honor that intent.

Fourth, although all of our worldwide activities are compelling and extremely important on a humanitarian basis, we will not redirect any funds that we receive for this tragedy to any other tragedy. We have no fine print or qualification in our accepting of a donation for this tragedy. We will use this money solely to pay for expenses directly related to assisting people in the affected areas.

Fifth, if the type of medical material assistance that Direct Relief provides at some point becomes less important than another type of assistance that the victims need, we will make cash grants to the health facilities that will have a long, hard road in the future or to other organizations who we are convinced will spend the money wisely and efficiently to assist the victims.

Sixth, we will spend money from this account only when it is clearly related to the tsunami relief effort. These expenses will include such things as air-cargo transportation, procurement of medicines, supplies, medical equipment, or other health-related items (such as water purification equipment) that are not donated, packaging material, travel costs for professional staff or contract experts to go disaster areas to ensure efficient distribution and use of material, or cash grants to organizations providing on-site relief. We will not pay the salaries of our current professional staff from the tsunami-relief contributions, even though many of us will spend a significant amount of our time on this disaster effort.

Seventh, our organization has ongoing expenses that we need to raise from friends and supporters each year. To conduct our assistance programs we need to maintain our warehouse, biomedical and pharmacy operations, obtain medical material contributions or buy essential products, pay for overseas shipping, and pay our staff of 29 persons. We typically operate at a deficit for 50 out of 52 weeks, and this tragedy occurred during the last week of the year, which is when we learn whether we made our budget for the year. We still need to raise funds to cover our general operating expenses, but we will not use tsunami-relief contributions for this purpose.

Eighth, we will not allocate any percentage of general administration, fundraising, existing warehouse space costs, or general overhead to the tsunami relief fund.

Finally, we believe strongly that this tragedy is not about raising money for Direct Relief. We have long experience in one important area of medical assistance, but the disaster has destroyed many other things that are important for people to regain their lives, livelihoods, and hope for the future. Other organizations do other things very well that are essential for the victims – food and shelter efforts, water and sanitation and, in the coming months, economic development, and reconstruction. We want prospective donors to understand the complexity of this disaster, so that each area receives adequate support. We also encourage all prospective donors to examine our financial records, which are easily accessible on this website.

This disaster is beyond the scope of any one organization or, indeed, government to address fully. We are committed to doing whatever we can within our area of expertise to help the people who have suffered, and we will work closely with all other groups to ensure that the funds that have been so graciously and generously provided are spent as efficiently and wisely to help the people for whom the donations have been made.

Thank you for your generosity.

The post Indian Ocean Tsunami Donation Policy appeared first on Direct Relief.