Tracking Haiti Donations in Real Time

by Nathaniel Whittemore · 2010-01-22 09:02:00 UTC
Topics:

For the past few months, the Foundation Center has been experimenting with mapping tools to increase the transparency and visibility of philanthropic grants and grantmaking institutions. Now, they're tracking donations to Haiti, and the list they've compiled is definitely worth checking out.

As of right now, 44 grant makers have donated a total of just over $30 million since the earthquake. While some of the groups listed are independent foundations like George Soros's Open Society Institute, many of those listed are corporate foundations.

The Foundation Center's list is great, but here are some quick additions and caveats to note:

  1. This list just tracks institutional giving. So for example, you don't see individual donations listed.

  2. Corporate giving isn't always done through corporate foundations. So some of these companies may actually be giving more than what's indicated (through employee matching programs, for example). It also means that companies that don't have established foundations aren't listed here.

  3. While it's nice to see corporations voluntarily taking the initiative on charitable giving, some of the sums raise eyebrows. It's not my purpose to call anyone out, but I think the fact that Kraft, the second-largest food conglomerate in the world -- a company that had almost 100,000 employees and $42 billion in revenue last year -- is giving $25,000, while a network of students around the country has raised literally 6x that amount should be enough to begin a conversation about what we truly view as corporate responsibility.

  4. While some of these companies are likely running employee matching programs, not all of them are, and that's a wasted opportunity. I think that a central tenet of corporate giving should be leveraging employee resources. (In this case, cash rather than in-kind gifts is what relief organizations need most, but more broadly, it's important to keep in mind that employee talents can be at least as valuable as their money.) Corporations across the board could do a much better job of being a catalyst helping to engage those resources.

Photo Credit: j.clark

Nathaniel Whittemore is the founder of Assetmap. Previously he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.
PREVIOUS STORY:
Supreme Court Kneecaps Campaign Finance Reform
NEXT STORY:
Facing Forward: The End of the Social Entrepreneurship Blog on Change.org

COMMENTS (1)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.