I want to help in Haiti... I mean really help

A schoolmate of mine asked for my advice for people planning on helping Haiti recovery by volunteering.

I understand totally where they are coming from.

I was in Thailand when the Tsunami struck a few years ago and wanted to help. The authorities wanted me to stay away from the affected areas because they really didn't need my skills. The UK and Aussie embassies (I am a citizen of both) asked me to talk to the Swedish embassy who needed volunteers to help trace missing people. By the time I got to them, there was enough help in place.

Locally, I have offered accommodation during floods and fires.

The need to help is a wonderful, human thing. But it is emotional, not rational. If you are there when something happens, then please - accept responsibility and act. Call the ambulance, do first aid, rescue people when safe to do so.

Specialist units, trained aid workers, soldiers, police etc are on standby waiting for the next inevitable disaster. Local and sometimes international support will turn up quickly.

But what about afterwards? Should you go and help?

Lack of hygiene, safe housing, water and food security, looting, fire risk and chemical spills can follow a disaster.

Each of these areas can only be addressed by trained people. Most countries have such, and where they don't will often call for specific international support. (There are obvious exceptions, but UK citizens would not be on the next plane to North Korea following an earthquake).

So, what if you are such a trained person?

If you are in the uniformed and emergency services (nurse, soldier, doctor etc), and live in a richer country then your employer, through the Government, may have a reserve scheme of specialists ready for this kind of incident.

It is not likely that without such reserve training you could help as much as you imagine, but check in with your employer, union or other professional body.

For the most important non-emergency roles, such as carpenters, plumbers and electricians you make think there would be a need, and there could be. But think about the impact - when you are there you are taking work from locals who also need to rebuild their lives. Whatever you do, don't just turn up - make arrangements with a local firm, union or authorities in advance.

It makes sense to get journalists and writers - including fundraisers - to post disaster areas. Their writings, images and work can help generate income and the right kind of support.

This is really brutal, but unless there is a specific call for people with your skill sets, and a mechanism in place for actually applying them there, you will be creating more of a problem than helping. Sorry.

But, what about being another pair of hands? Well, as I said before, if you are there when disaster strikes, pitch in and help.

But afterwards, there is very, very rarely a shortage of labour after a disaster.

More the opposite - people wandering around with nothing to do. Also, local labour speaks the language, knows the terrain, is used to the weather and food - basically they are better equipped than you to do stuff.

Sorry again, but there is not a nice way to say it. You mean well, but mostly you would be more of a burden than a benefit.

Donating the cost of going could have a hundred fold impact on the lives of people there than turning up.

For example, a couple flying from the UK to Haiti would cost about £3,000. Five times the annual income of a average Haitian. Imagine the impact of donating that instead!?

I believe that any impact analysis (jargon for the amount of good achieved divided by the cost) would show that volunteering from the UK (or Australia, USA etc) after a disaster is one of the worst things you can do - possibly worse than doing nothing, and definitely worse than donating.

Unless there is a specific call from a bonafide, rational, strategic agency and an organised, trained method of getting those appropriate people there for defined jobs.

We should donate. And get friends to. And with the couple of weeks or more time saved by not going to the country, we could volunteer for a local charity. Or volunteer abroad with someone like VSO or Earthwatch. These things will help the people of Haiti more than us turning up there with kind hearts and genuine humanity.

If you still want to go, then make sure you understand that you are doing it for yourself, not - in this example - the people of Haiti.

Maybe not such a bad thing, provided you don't become a burden. You will gain much more than a holiday, meet fantastic people and gather some great stories.

Plan carefully, work with a professional organisation, be prepared for everything to go wrong - including injury and illness, sharing rooms with strangers and theft, notify your embassy on arrival.

And afterwards, follow it up. Start a local fundraising committee, talk to local Rotary etc and share your photos, motivate people to donate. Aim to raise at least ten times the amount that you spent getting there - that should balance the karma!

Still up for it? Well, check out Tonic, they list organisations that could help you get to Haiti and help here. Also, visit the websites of the big local relief agencies at home.

Sean

Post Haiti Fundraising Follow up

Last week I promised more on what should happen after a disaster.

Unfortunately we live in a world where huge natural disasters are frequent events. Although they generate lots of media attention - and therefore money - we in fundraising know that they are actually superceded by ongoing humanitarian and environmental problems.

So we fundraisers have an uncomfortable responsibility to maximise the long term impact of the outpouring of human emotion and good will that is catalysed by these media events. For every Haiti there is a chronic problem like malaria.

People don't really care about Haiti more than they care about malaria - they are just more motivated through stories, media, peer pressure, guilt when a big media event happens.

A good illustration of how these disasters have engaged the interest of Australians is this chart showing the relative proportions of searches in Google by the Aussie public. For example - bush fires dominated in February 2009 but Haiti peaked in January 2010.



Not surprisingly, emergency response charities such as the Red Cross have been kept busy.

These charities are great getting the aid where needed and getting money straight away. But they all seem to fail on the follow up. I donated to a selection of charities - who asked me to - on Jan 19. I have had no follow up.

When a disaster strikes, these charities are sometimes overwhelmed with donations.

The short term priority is to get the money to the field where it is needed.

But really, the long term priority is to get these - often new - donors more involved. The charities need these people to help with less media hyped but euqally tragic circumstances.

For one charity, we proposed that their entire non face-to-face acquisition strategy be built around disasters. We know there are going to be disasters. And you can plan a growth strategy around them to supplement your other methods.

With initial donations made without the heavy cost of asking, the cost per acquisition is much, much lower than normal. But the lifetime value is very low.

Our initial work in this area shows that speed is of the essence. To increase the average lifetime value, how about getting to emergency donors very quickly with a low-level monthly gift ask? Even with the costs of this taken into account, and the fact that you won't convert everyone, you still end up with a superb cost per acquisition.

The secret about when to go to the new donor with an ongoing proposition is immediately after you have been able to thank them and tell them what their money was spent on.

I saw Australian charity direct mail expert, Leo Orland, present a couple of years ago and he said charities should thank new donors straight away. In that thank you he wanted the signatory to commit to feeding back within a stated period ‘how we have spent your money'. This is excellent advice and is applicable here too.

The bottom line - a media event disaster is an open door to people who care, and what to make a difference. They are hard (and expensive) to find and quickly drift off. Get to them quickly.

That is enough for today, but tomorrow I will post my 'Disaster Donor Conversion plan.'

Should I Mail My Appeal At The Same Time as a Disaster?

The terrible events in Haiti will almost certainly be matched by substantial donations from people right now - people are good, and generous.

But what if you work for a charity that has nothing to do with emergencies abroad - and you have a campaign due to launch next week?

Should you carry on?

Regardless of the media - phone, email, mail, TV etc, the answer is almost certainly yes. All evidence we can find shows that giving goes up in a disaster - and the disaster gifts are additional.

Even if you believe income will be down if you run a campaign 'up against' a new-focused disaster - and all evidence seems to show this is the wrong conclusion - logic dictates you should still carry on.

The main reason is that for most organisations, whatever campaign that was planned was going at this time for a reason. Almost certainly there is another campaign planned after an appropriate gap.

So delaying could have much greater impacts on your communications plan than any potential drop in income right now. With 20 communications in a year, a delay by two weeks is effectively cancelling a communication. And if you think 'it won't matter to drop x communication' then you shouldn't have been sending it anyway. (Twenty communications is on the low side for most organisations - think appeals, newsletters, donor care, updates, emails, phone upgrades, surveys etc...)

However, I repeat - all evidence shows that you will make more money for your cause if you carry on than you would by delaying or cancelling.

For more numbers and details on the reasons why you should go for it check out this article - 'Tsunami Suicide and the Earthquake in China'.

Sean