Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund Has Yet to Announce Plans
Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund Still Hasn't Awarded Funds
A month and a half after Hurricane Katrina battered the Gulf Coast, the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund has raised more than $108 million, leading some charity monitoring groups to wonder how the money is going to be spent, the New York Times reports.
Almost as soon as the fund was announced on September 5, questions arose about how the donations it collected would be spent. Former President George H.W. Bush initially declared that all funds would go to three nonprofit organizations established by the governors of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. But two weeks later, former President Bill Clinton seemed less certain about the eventual allocation of funds. "President Bush and I are going to have an announcement later in the week about some specific things we're going to do," Clinton said at a National Football League telethon that raised $5 million for the fund. "But our goal is to make sure that the maximum percentage of the dollars that go to our fund go to people who are most in need and might not get any help at all." The announcement Clinton referred to has not yet been made.
Paul C. Light, a professor at New York University's Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service, said that while he respected the two former presidents' efforts to help thousands displaced by the hurricane, he worried that they did not understand how much pressure and scrutiny the fund faces. A recent Wagner School survey of 1,500 people found that roughly one-third of Americans have little or no confidence in charity and two-thirds believe charities waste a great deal of money. "The public who gives are going to watch this story very closely," said Light. "The last thing either one of them wants is a story about how the money they raised helped pave a road to nowhere."
In other words, the distribution of money raised by the fund must balance the need to get money into the hands of people who need it today with the need for a large measure of transparency and accountability, both of which require well-considered documentation and reporting. "The states, the governors have to come to us with very clear, completely Katrina-related needs that they want funded," said Jay Carson, a spokesman for the Bush-Clinton Fund. "The way the money is physically distributed is something we're [still] working out."
Strom, Stephanie.
“Ex-Presidents Try to Decide Where to Send Storm Relief.”
New York Times
10/08/05.
Primary Subject: Philanthropy and Voluntarism
Secondary Subject(s): Hurricane Relief
Location(s): Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi
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