'Compassion Fatigue': Is It Affecting China, Myanmar Donations?

- Disasters seen by many Americans as 'must-give' situation

SEATTLE, May 20 /PRNewswire/ -- As the death counts for Asia's twin
disasters continue to climb, leading relief agency World Vision is seeing a
surprising responsiveness among donors to the needs in Myanmar and China.
"We have been tremendously encouraged by the generosity of both our
existing donors and donors giving to us for the first time," said Randy
Strash, World Vision's strategy director for disaster response.
"In our experience, massive natural disasters like these bring out the
compassion in people; many see them as 'must-give' situations -- recession or
no recession," Strash explained. "It's life or death. People understand both
the urgency of the need and the impact their donation will make. I believe
that's why we're not seeing any signs of donor fatigue among our supporters.
In fact, in the case of Myanmar, we expect to raise four times what we
initially estimated."
World Vision -- one of just a few organizations with staff responding on
the ground in both disasters -- has so far raised $5.1 million for Myanmar and
$850,000 for China among donors in the United States. The Christian
humanitarian agency expects these numbers to climb significantly in the coming
weeks, especially in the case of China, where corporate donors are actively
engaging and the Chinese-American community has mobilized to help.
A significant amount of the giving is happening on the organization's
website: "For online fundraising, these two disasters in Myanmar and China
have set the highest record in three years -- since the overwhelming response
during the Asia tsunami," said Shari Goetsch, an online fundraising director
for the Seattle-based agency.
While the 2004 Asia tsunami and 2005 Hurricane Katrina responses were met
by unprecedented American generosity, many fundraising experts say these
disasters were unique in many ways.
"For so many reasons, the tsunami and Katrina blew all fundraising models
out the window," explained Strash. "The Pakistan quake in October 2005 is a
much better indicator of how much Americans tend to give for disasters -- and
we're meeting and surpassing that benchmark with Myanmar and China now."
Strash cautioned that his team is not slowing their fundraising pace yet:
"The human needs in Myanmar and China continue to be urgent and massive in
scope. And we already know that the reconstruction effort in both in
disasters is going to take time and funds.
"With the Asia tsunami, the reconstruction was 10 times the scale of the
emergency relief operation, and it took three years to complete the work.
That's why we can't afford to slow down our fundraising efforts yet."
In China, World Vision has begun distributions of relief items, including
quilts, tents, shelter tarpaulins, plastic sheets, food and hygiene items to
survivors. The agency plans to reach more than 123,000 quake survivors with
immediate relief as well as long-term rebuilding assistance focused on home
and school reconstruction.
In Myanmar, World Vision's 580 in-country staff has assisted 130,000
people with rice, clean water, medicines and survival items -- and plans to
reach nearly 500,000 in all. In addition, dozens of Child-Friendly Spaces are
giving child survivors a safe place to play and recover from any losses or
traumatic experiences.
World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working
with children, families and their communities worldwide to reach their full
potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice. For more
information, please visit www.worldvision.org/press.
SOURCE World Vision

Rachel Wolff, +1-253-394-2214, rwolff@worldvison.org, or Casey Calamusa,
+1-206-310-5476, ccalamus@worldvision.org, both of World Vision