January 8, 2005

Dear Friends,

Our committee members have been contacted by many parishioners looking for guidance in how to best help those affected by the tsunami's devastation. The nightly news estimates that more than 150,000 were killed, millions are without homes or means for livelihood, and tens of millions are vulnerable to life threatening disease and starvation. Our brothers and sisters at First Parish are sensitive to the fact that some organizations are more effective than others in managing funds, and are looking to us to research and select safe, reputable and effective recipients for aid. Members of the committee have been generous with their time and diligent in their efforts to examine program and financial data for many organizations.

Our January 4th Outreach Committee meeting was entirely devoted to the issue of Tsunami Relief. We were fortunate to have received input from many parishioners in advance of the meeting, both with information and with questions. Three parishioners not on the Outreach Committee attended the meeting in order to participate in the discussion. One of them, Cam Peters, worked in Africa and Pakistan for 8 years for relief and development organizations including Catholic Relief Services as well as UN-sponsored NGO's, and we were grateful for his perspective. Twenty seven church members not on the Outreach Committee spoke with or emailed Outreach Chair Mary Shaw privately regarding their personal giving and their sense of a need to give priority to this issue. Special thanks go to Sue Brewster for her suggestion of "Save the Children" and of "www.give.org", the charity review website of the Better Business Bureau; to Dick and Jean Masland for their suggestion of the Christian Children's Fund; to Steve Matthysse who suggested CARE; and numerous parishioners who spoke with me and with other committee members and church staff raising their concerns for long term and short term efforts, and contributing their ideas and feelings regarding the moral obligation of the church to respond immediately and significantly.

We all agreed that immediate aid is important. Almost everyone who has spoken with us has already made substantial personal contributions to organizations doing work to relieve the suffering in the Indian Ocean area. Our committee is cognizant that some of the immediate problems cannot be addressed with immediate contributions because of transportation, delivery and other logistical problems, and we recognize that long-term support in the rebuilding process is as or more important. We have tried to temper our emotional reactivity to this heart-breaking situation with clear analysis of what will effectively reduce the most suffering for the greatest numbers both quickly and long term; saving lives now, and quality of lives later.

Accordingly, we chose to analyze some 13 recognized charitable relief organizations with an eye to which ones might be most effective in the short and long term. (See complete list of organizations and websites at the end of this letter). We also looked at our historic Outreach Committee budget and other possible sources of funds within First Parish and tried to come up with a funding target for First Parish as a whole.

Our suggestion for First Parish response to this emergency is as follows:

Immediate and Short Term (3 months) Relief Funds:

Oxfam: Oxfam has already established a large-scale relief program in India. Their financials demonstrate a 90%+ recipient rate for funds. Furthermore, recent WSJ and Boston Globe articles praised Oxfam for its swift mobilization in the affected regions. Parishioner Cristy Brackett graciously contacted others in the Brackett Family Foundation which operates in Thailand, and they were strongly supportive of Oxfam. Of all the charities mentioned by parishioners, Oxfam was mentioned at least four times more often than any others.

American Friends Service Committee:

AFSC is a Quaker organization with a very strong network on the ground in Indonesia and Sumatra, the hardest hit areas in the region. They have established a separate fund for Tsunami Relief and due to a special endowment, can assure a 100% recipient rate for these funds.

Catholic Relief Services:

Prior to the earthquake, CRS had a large and extensive network on the ground in the affected region. Parishioner Cam Peters (a non-Catholic) had worked for CRS and other relief organizations for 8 years in Africa and Pakistan. He had nothing but praise for CRS's work. Interestingly, he assured us that CRS does not have a religious agenda. Based on Cam's strong recommendation, we included CRS in our short-term relief list.

Long-Term Relief Funds:

Oxfam: The sheer scale of Oxfam's programs in the affected region also included them in our long-term aid list.

UUSC: Our initial impression is that UUSC does not have a strong network in place today. However, based on their proven ability to mobilize and network in disaster stricken regions we felt that UUSC would be an excellent recipient for on-going long-term funds.

Sarvodaya: Although most of our Committee had never heard of Sarvodaya before Tuesday's meeting, we learned that they are a very reputable 47 year old relief organization in Sri Lanka. Their mission is "to donate effort for the awakening of all". We are currently reviewing their financials and, provided they have a relatively high recipient rate, we felt its work history demonstrated that they could use our help.

Other Organizations:

In addition to those mentioned above, the committee reviewed the work of the following organizations and did not select them to be recommended to the church: AmeriCares, CARE, Doctors Without Borders, the American Red Cross, and the International Committee of the Red Cross/Red Crescent. Sometimes this lack of selection reflected a concern about the organization's work, and other times we felt that the organization was excellent, but had to narrow down our choices. Some were umbrella organizations which passed through contributions to "boots on the ground" groups, but used some percentage of donations to fund their own overhead in the process. Others had a political or religious agenda which we felt we could not impose on our diverse church community. One, Doctors Without Borders, noted that it had reached its capacity to serve those in the area, and could not accept further contributions for tsunami relief. We applauded their forthrightness in announcing this, and are aware that other organizations may not have the insight nor honesty required to recognize and publicize that more money now will not result in more relief.

With deepest sympathy to those affected by this tragedy,

Mary Shaw, Chair, Outreach Committee

Chet Cekala, Clerk, Outreach Committee

Contact information to organizations mentioned above:

AmeriCares, 88 Hamilton Ave. Stamford, CT 06902 800-486-4357 www.americares.org

American Friends Service Committee 1501 Cherry Street Philadelphia, PA 19102 (215) 215-241-7000 www.afsc.org

American Red Cross International Response Fund 285 Columbus Ave. Boston, MA 02116-5114 617-375-0700 X 277 www.bostonredcross.org

CARE 151 Ellis St. Northeast, Atlanta, GA. 30303-2440 800-521-CARE www.care.org

Catholic Relief Services P.O. Box 17090 Baltimore, MD 21203-7090 800-736-3467 www.catholicrelief.org

Christian Children's Fund 1501 Cherry Street Philadelphia, PA 19102 800-776-6767 www.christianchildrensfund.org

Doctors Without Borders P.O. Box 1856 Merrifield, VA 22116-8056 888-392-0392 www.doctorswithoutborders.org

International Committee of the Red Cross/Red Crescent P.O. Box 372, CH-1211 Geneva 19, Switzerland www.ifrc.org/helpnow

Habitat for Humanity 121 Habitat St. Americus, GA 31709-3498 800-422-4828 www.habitat.org

Oxfam America Asia Earthquake Fund P.O. Box 1211 Albert Lea, MN 56007-1211 800-77-OXFAM www.oxfamamerica.org

Sarvodaya USA c/o Richard Brooks, 2616 Mason Street Madison, WI 53705 www.sarvodaya.org or email to rbrooks@dcs.wisc.edu
Sarvodaya Headquarters No 98, Rawatawatta Road, Moratuwa , Sri Lanka

Save the Children USA Asia Earthquake/Tidal Wave Relief Fund 54 Wilton Rd. Westport, CT 06880 800-728-3843 www.savethechildren.org

US Fund for UNICEF South Asian Tsunami Relief 333 E 38^th St. NYC, NY 10016 800-4-UNICEF www.unicefusa.org

UUSC 130 Prospect St. Cambridge, MA. 02139 617-868-6600 X230 www.uusc.org