Charity advice for Japan relief

[michelel72]

I'm looking to donate funds for rescue and support efforts in Japan. I'd prefer to donate as directly as possible (rather than to an aggregator who funds an aggregator who funds ...), and ideally I'd also donate to organizations with a good track record of using a high percentage of donations for programs rather than overhead. There's only so much one can find in short order, though, and I'm pretty sure swiftness is urgent.

I'm currently looking at this promotion for animal rescue and perhaps Peace Winds via Mercy Corps for people (though I've donated to Doctors without Borders before and would be willing to do so again here).

If anyone has any information about these agencies, good or bad, I'd appreciate word; highly recommended alternates would also be welcome. (No religious charities, please, and not the American Red Cross.) I know GreaterGood.org is collecting and paying credit card transaction fees, for example, but all they say is they pass on donations to "affiliated charities". And I'd love to bid over at the fandom auctions (chibi art by gnine!) or offer a donation in exchange for something like intensive Photoshop collage tutoring, but I'll be donating anyway and much sooner, so I don't want to outbid someone and thereby "cost" some charity that donation.

I'll update this post when I actually donate, no later than Saturday or probably before.

Update: DWB/MSF are very good, as I mentioned, as is Partners in Health; for this event, though, I'm choosing Direct Relief International's Japan Relief and Recovery Fund. Direct Relief is highly rated at Charity Navigator and has been recommended via multiple different paths. For animals, I'm looking at a split between the promotion linked above and the WSPA.

Comments

[skaredykat.livejournal.com]

I tend to check in with charitynavigator.org and veer toward four-star charities on there, for legitimacy and information on whether most of the money goes to actual relief vs. overhead & fundraising. (DWB tends to be my default safe-choice.) Also maybe ask busaikko if she has ideas, as she's there?

[michelel72.livejournal.com]

The only problem with Charity Navigator is that they focus only on US-based charities, as far as I can tell, so it's hard to check out more direct / Japan-based organizations. That said, they rate Direct Relief quite highly, so I'm going with them. (I don't know busaikko personally, and I'm wary of just PMing someone fairly randomly, but thanks for the suggestion.)

[skaredykat.livejournal.com]

True, though I think they're starting to rate (bigger) international ones too, I think? And I should have said, they rate both MSF/DWB and Direct Relief highly, and I've given to both of those after various natural disasters in part because of the consistently high ratings from charitynavigator and related reports/sites.

Hee, my slightly fuzzy initial thought was something like "I betaed some stories for busaikko and she seems very nice and I betaed a story for michelel and she seems very nice too, so of course they must know each other" which =/= in fact, true. Duh! Though it does show how less-shy I've become online. :)