How to Help Nepal

[xoxoxoBruce]

From GiveWell

GiveWell aims to find giving opportunities that allow donors to do as much good as possible with their donations, and our research efforts focus on that goal. We have not researched giving opportunities related to the relief effort for the Nepal earthquake, specifically. Below, we share our 6 tips on disaster relief giving.

1. Give cash, not clothes (or other goods).
2. Support an organization that will help or get out of the way.
3. Give proactively, not reactively.
4. Allow your funds to be used where most needed – even if not used during this disaster.
5. Give to organizations that are transparent and accountable.
•Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which has distinguished itself with well-above-average transparency in both of the cases listed above. In the case of the 2011 Japan tsunami, it straightforwardly disclosed that it was not seeking more funding for use in the relief effort, and was one of the only organizations to do so. We believe it’s worth rewarding MSF for its unusual transparency, and if it doesn’t use your money on this disaster, it will likely use it to address a less-publicized crisis.
•The local Red Cross. The Red Cross generally takes a leading role in a relief effort and (it seems to us) is assigned credit/blame for how the overall effort goes, to a greater degree than other nonprofits. The American Red Cross will often redirect donations to the local Red Cross, minus a sometimes-substantial fee.
6. Think about less-publicized suffering.

There are further clarifications for the six at the link.