Information Ethics and Disaster Grants

Abstract

The 65,000-plus foundations and other grant making institutions that make up the nonprofit sector have never been under greater pressure to provide time-sensitive assistance and services. In 1989, the Loma Prieta Earthquake affected the lives of thousands of Californians. Foundations, charities, grantmakers, and corporations gave more than $47 million to help relief and recovery efforts. The Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 resulted in more than $12 million in donations that needed to be distributed. Within hours of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, donations began flooding into the American Red Cross to help victims of the attack. Donations and aid to help the survivors eventually totaled an estimated $2.8 billion and resulted in the development of never-before-considered methods for handling and disbursing charitable contributions (Council on Foundations). Monetary donations immediately after Hurricane Katrina, an estimated $1.3 billion and still counting, broke records set by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami relief efforts in the U.S. In a reversal of usual positions, the U.S. received more millions in international aid and assistance from numerous countries.Particularly since 9/11 there has been a marked change in how the philanthropic community responds to events. Where once the Red Cross was the agency of choice for emergency fundraising efforts, recent disasters and events have forced more staid philanthropic agencies and grant seekers into uncomfortable dynamic roles. Post-event studies have been published that chronicle and analyze the philanthropic and governmental responses to these and other emergencies. This article argues that there exists an unrecognized conclusion in almost all of those studies: grant-making decision-makers have a need for fast, accurate, and transparent information. Information managers have a vital in these processes and an ethical responsibility to provide this information.Traditionally, the grant-making relationship is a perilous one, fraught with opportunities for malfeasance and dishonesty. The funding relationship is a power-based relationship, a complex mating dance that requires both partners to display their plumage to their best advantage. It is a relationship whose first premise is a willingness to suspend belief in the information used to justify funding and in how funds really being used (Unwin, 2004, p.95). A primary cause of this dance of disbelief, notwithstanding the huge contributions made to relieve suffering in disasters, is that too many grant seekers chasing a shrinking pool of funds. This encourages both parties to misstate, obfuscate, or exaggerate the facts in their effort to achieve their respective goals. Particularly in times of dire and immediate need, the priority to do something now! leads to corner-cutting practices and a tolerance of good enough attitudes between both grant giver and grant receiver. Efforts to short-circuit or circumvent information flow or information integrity lead to trouble.A year-long study by the Council on Foundations (2001) cites the distinct and crucial role foundations have in disaster management. Local people, it said, are the first to respond to disasters and they have done a very effective job of being first on the scene and doing what needs to be done to get the situation under control (p. 6). Grant makers and foundations have a different, though no less crucial role, in providing longer term solutions, cross-sector collaboration, and research into trends and lessons learned:At the same time, grant makers face serious challenges when deluged with emergency grant requests in times of disasters. Decisions about disaster funding often fall outside a grant maker's regular program areas, with typically limited or absent in-house expertise on the complexities of disaster issues. Moreover, disaster grant decisions can be subject to emotional appeals and often made quickly under perceived time pressures. …