By donat­ing funds to disaster-specific char­i­ta­ble organ­i­sa­tions and cam­paigns we restrict the use of our funds to the relief of that prob­lem only. This can cause long-lasting issues for char­i­ties and world­wide dis­as­ter recov­ery efforts in the future.

To ensure the char­i­ta­ble help best, the char­i­ta­ble should ensure they give unre­stricted funds that are not ear­marked for spe­cific dis­as­ters.

[Médecins Sans Fron­tières] has already received enough money over the past three days to keep its Haiti mis­sion run­ning for the best part of the next decade. MSF is behav­ing as eth­i­cally as it can, and has deter­mined that the vast major­ity of the spike in dona­tions that it’s received in the past few days was intended to be spent in Haiti. It will there­fore ear­mark that money for Haiti, and try to spend it there over the com­ing years, even as other mis­sions, else­where in the world, are still in des­per­ate need of resources. […]

The last time there was a dis­as­ter on this scale was the Asian tsunami, five years ago. And for all its best efforts, the Red Cross has still only spent 83% of its $3.21 bil­lion tsunami bud­get — which means that it has over half a bil­lion dol­lars left to spend. Not to put too fine a point on it, but that’s money which could be spent in Haiti, if it weren’t for the fact that it was earmarked. […]

If a char­ity is worth sup­port­ing, then it’s worth sup­port­ing with unre­stricted funds. Because the last thing any­body wants to see in a cou­ple of years’ time is an unseemly tus­sle over what hap­pened to today’s Haiti dona­tions, even as other inter­na­tional tragedies receive much less pub­lic attention.