America's North Shore Journal

News 24 International medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres is tracking down hundreds of thousands of tsunami donors worldwide and offering them their money back after it received four times as much money as it needed, a report said on Wednesday. In Australia alone the charity sent out more than 4 000 letters telling donors it could not use their money for tsunami victims, the Sydney Morning Herald said. It had 172 requests for refunds totalling A$93 000 (about R437 000) while about 1 700 donors specified other appeals and the rest left the matter up to the charity’s discretion. Medecins Sans Frontieres received four times the ’20m it needed to fund its response to the December 26 disaster. The charity’s president, Rowan Gillies, was quoted as saying it was ethically compelled to contact every donor … Read entire article »

Another source has also been tracking the giving of Americans for tsunami relief. They asked permission to use my work early on, but never, NEVER, gave me a link or a credit. Poopie heads! Anyway, here’s what they came up with: Center on Philanthropy: Cash (includes organizations not publicly reporting their totals) 1,164,623,396 Value of in-kind gifts reported 116,947,716 Total cash and in-kind gifts to date 1,281,571,112 Planned fundraising (goal) 56,980,567 Total committed + planned 1,338,551,679 CHARITY AMOUNT American Red Cross $460,500,000. Americares $40,000,000. CARE USA $41,300,000. Catholic Relief Services $150,000,000. Doctors Without Borders USA $20,000,000. Lutheran World Relief $12,400,000. Mercy Corps $25,800,000. Oxfam America $30,000,000. Salvation Army $10,200,000. Samaritan’s Purse $23,000,000. UNICEF USA $92,400,000. … Read entire article »

We did it! $1,030,714,108.34 Over a billion dollars in private donations for tsunami relief. THE STINGY LIST is linked over at the left. All us stingy Americans did it. Pfui on you, Jimmy Carter. The efforts continue. As I researched this final report, I saw many, many concerts, auctions, sales, etc. that are scheduled for the next month or so. We haven’t forgotten. The press of real life kept me from recent updates, I’m afraid. Bill Hobbs, the blogger who named the list, asked about it the other day, and that prompted me to do the remaining research. I can tell you with utter certainty that this amount is far short of what has actually been donated. It may be short by as much as $100 million. I’m ending the record keeping at this point. … Read entire article »

The next time you consider taking a cruise, you might want to consider one of the Carnival Cruise Line offerings. The corporation has donated $3.2 million for tsunami relief. Carnival chairman Micky Arison has joined with his company and donated his 2004 bonuss, $2.4 million. … Read entire article »

I have updated THE STINGY LIST over at the left. $968,948,732.93 That’s a lot. A whole lot. I’ve got a bunch of e-mail information requests out and I do believe the total will exceed $1 billion U.S. This is money from church collections, children selling hot cocoa on the corner, shoppers in stores, big corporations and small companies like my employer. School children worked on this project. Nuns and Native Americans, all sorts of people have worked hard to raise this money. As Americans, we can be proud of what we’ve done. We stepped up, as individuals, to donate this money. This isn’t our government taking our money to give it away as it wants. This is individual Americans making the decisions, putting our money where we want it to go. I AM proud … Read entire article »