That siege was the incident that brought home to me the impotence one feels at being unable to respond in an appropriate way, and within months it would be eclipsed by a natural disaster in the Tsunami.

Consider Burma's problems right now, as aid is being delayed by politics.

I tried a disruptive approach with Beslan, knowing the country would introduce delays and graft since it was graft that enabled ordnance to be brought into a school. Money was important, for minor comforts but so too was human contact the knowing that someone in another part of the world actually wanted to reach out, rather than the conventional and anonymous donations campaigns that we associate with relief.

There were ways to deliver funds, placing trust in strangers to us on the ground, via ATMs to be sure that all went to where it was most needed and to enter into dialogue with those surviving rather than donate and forget.

Clearly this doesn't do much for the large scale natural disaster, where shelters and clean water are needed quickly. This is where we must strike mutual assistance agreements between nations, such that we don't repeat what it happening in Burma right now.

In my experience, attempting to raise awareness through the media is a waste of time. As I've reported elsewhere, having a story about disabled children's neglect removed from the BBC action network site and a smear blog hosted by Google for the last 2 years.

Ebay and the like may recognise large scale nonprofits, but there's little help for those orgs who work where some issues are overlooked and none at all for those engaging a social business model in their endeavours.

For Burma, the Avaaz campaign to deliver funds to the Buddhist monks seemed most appropriate to me. Developing local cultural understanding, and finding high trust people on the ground already, seems a sound strategy to me.

Thanks Jeff for bringing up the challenges of not only raising support but ensuring that aid gets to those it was intended to help, and gets to them in a timely manner. The UK's Telegraph, http://tinyurl.com/6m6oa4, talks about UN efforts in the face of big obstacles for aid agencies, including refusal of offered assistance by Myanmar officials and tremendous paperwork delays for visas holding up humanitarian relief.

I agree that eBay and the like tend to focus on larger organizations because they are known and vetted entities. It is why I think it is important for smaller organizations to plan ahead to get themselves "known" and to band together so that they appear on resource lists like the one mentioned above consolidated by InterAction.

I also found your comment "enter into dialogue with those surviving rather than donate and forget" to be interesting. Do you have suggestions on how organizations (and donors) can engage and work with survivors after a disaster? Is there any planning that organizations can do now that would reduce "the impotence one feels" at the time of a crisis?

Well Jill, it seems to me that we live in a connected and in fact, there's someone I know in the UK going by the name of David Braden who's set about constructing a worldwide community to community connectory, with the aim of developing global relationships.

It seems a good idea to me to be armed with information. I mentioned Beslan, where it was possible to get lists of victim's families and make them available such that contact could be noted, avoiding the situation where one or two families got all the attention and some got none.

We start a dialogue, social networking based not on building traffic and monetising, but social for it's own sake.

We're not going to be able to fly in food relief, fix sanitation or construct shelter for which there will always be need of military scale operations. but we can deliver small comforts and make it our business as a community taking on another as a brother, to see to it that we deliver our sibling from poverty and exclusion.

Information is a starting point, but it's real contact with other humans that makes them feel their own worth, isn't it?

That's what I should have witten in my last message Jill, we live in a connected world but I think we have to question that. I could start with the message on the home page here perhaps take a survey and win $1000 for the 501c3 of your choice I know it's a nonprofit seal of approval but further than that, zilch.

I read the link you posted and went on to the punch-up in the comments section of the Guardian. We want to deliver aid to Burma but with our personnel as we don't trust their military, they don't trust our aid workers and nobody trusts anyone who isn't wearing an 'I've been vetted' label.

Both the US and UK have registration procedures for nonprofits, but never the twain shall meet when it comes to trust. Or so it seems, if tax deductible status is the standard of approval. I imagine that goes for all other countries too.

From what I see of the social enterprise movement here in the UK, things seem to be heading the same way, with some now advocating a mark of approval. Were there as much energy put into communicating with each other, as the effort made to enforce one's system of trust onto others, we might get at least little bit further.

Are these rules of engagement in trust there because we are so remote from those that we want to help, in our world of massive corporations and foundations. When someone tells us that charity begins at home, I know they're not saying that the suffering of the rest of the world doesn't matter, or that poverty and pandemic doesn't return on us. They are saying I think, that trust should be given to those you can interact with and understand the need of through direct contact.

Ways to help the Chinese earthquake victims are now available on GlobalGiving.org.

MercyCorps has an ad on the site Shanghaiist.com: Help China Quake Victims Give to Mercy Corps and help send relief to Chinese families affected www.mercycorps.org/chinaearthquake

The Shanghaiist also has instructions on how to wire donations (http://shanghaiist.com/2008/05/13/red_cross_society_earthquake_sichuan.php) or make online donations at Red Cross Society of China website: www.redcross.org.cn

And other organizations have bought Google Adwords so they show up when you search for information and ways to help the earthquake rescue:

China Earthquake Help Support Americares Efforts to Help Victims China Earthquake-Donate Now www.AmeriCares.org/china

China Earthquake Relief $25 or more can provide victims with help now! www.WorldVision.org

Help Disaster Victims Help those in need. See our map of today's urgent relief opportunities www.VolunteerMatch.org/

As an aside, any organization can buy adwords (although only "certified" nonprofits can participate in the Google Grants program). This not only helps donors find you, but it also helps the media researching articles to find you as well.

Jill, thanks for keeping us in the loop on this. You're right, we have found that online social engagement has been one of the most successful forms of outreach for both of these disasters. As was mentioned earlier, many people weren't sure which organizations were ready to accept and distribute aid, so being able to reach out about this was crucial.

We have AdWords running, in addition to putting notices on our homepage and alerting previous donors. However, we have found that many donors giving to either cause are first time donors - proving how critical social outreach is.

Lastly, we have been twittering news about our disaster relief efforts - letting people know, first about our Myanmar page. Then, after China's earthquake, we alerted followers that we would have page up shortly (it's live now). Some followers were glad to know that we would be responding.

Just discovered a great article on TechSoup (originally on NetSquared) talking about numerous ways technology has aided disaster relief efforts: "Better Technology for Disaster Relief How technology is helping humanitarian efforts around the world" http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/techplan/page6717.cfm?cg=searchterms&sg=disaster%20communications

Definitely take a look. Some highlights: Greg Swanson of HumaniNet, "simply a clearinghouse of information, a help desk if you will, for humanitarians to call, or email, or come on in and ask questions, and we could find answers for them," is interviewed and says:

" [In Afghanistan] There were no communications, no phone, no cell phones or anything. ...and I discovered two things. The first was that the answers were out there in industry. There were a lot of people who wanted to help in humanitarian relief, but they just didn't know where to plug in, including large companies. The second was that other NGOs, other humanitarian and relief organizations, had answers to a lot of these questions, but there was no provision for cross-tell."

Social Web Tools

Can help get "the word back to their constituency about what is going on in a disaster scene. ... People had a much better understanding of what the relief teams were up against." -- Can help relief teams "to be able to simply communicate with their loved ones back home, and also with each other."

New tools are needed: "One that comes to mind — and this is perhaps the Holy Grail of humanitarian work — is what I call an intelligent bulletin board ... or "share-a-ride" concept. So that the people after a disaster, [those] who have resources — whether it's clothing, water, volunteers, anything that might be of benefit in the relief — could be matched up with the need."

Practice and collaborate through internet simulation exercise: from the Humaninet web site http://www.humaninet.org/events_simday.html "To bring humanitarian and nonprofit managers up to date on ICTs* that could help their teams in a disaster response or crisis, HumaniNet, in partnership with Telenor , Inveneo, TechReach International, and other nonprofit organizations, organized the Silicon Valley Sim Day to demonstrate proven technologies in a simulated field environment."

More TechSoup resources: http://tinyurl.com/5s37uv includes Is Your Organization Prepared for a Disaster? Tsunami Serves As Wake-Up Call to Bridging Digital Divide

What resources have you found for preparing your organization, planning communication between staff, restoring systems and services, etc?

Jill, developing software is what I do. Here for example is how we apply it to our social business approach with a facility reservation service - http://tinyurl.com/4rxhwo Something more recent in this niche market was deployed to mobilise resources at Camp Chevron post Katrina, for example.

In the context of responding to urgent need, I've used a simple database supplied as standard with Yahoo groups, to match those in need with individual resources. Having the ability to deliver CMS based websites within hours and engage with search optimisation and advertising mechanisms also helps.

I agree something more comprehensive is needed to match resources to need, but there's a great reluctance to collaborate, even communicate with smaller players. As you can see from the product development above, matching people to resource is our area of specialisation, hence my earlier comment about a more person to person approach.

For some time to the best of my knowledge, we have been the only 100% profit for social purpose software developer in the business, yet there is such little interest I am close to claiming unemployment benefit, due to the lack of work.

The technology is there for the asking, even an end to end social approach. But we need to be aware that though we might persuade business to adapt its practices to our products, as has been the trend over recent years, the same cannot necessarily be deployed in a disaster.

Ending with an anecdote about matching software. I was involved in an 80s development project called Capital which was a mainframe based people for jobs service funded by government, for London. It collapsed on completion because the market changed. With 8 people to every job, there's was no longer a problem finding staff when jobseekers had desperation forced upon them, though the software won an award for the product most likely to benefit the community.

I'm not anticipating the need for disaster relief to change, but we must come up with something that is adaptable to changing demands and the scale of those demands, or we could end up like the UK government with a wonderful product that just isn't practical.

Thanks Jeff, for your thoughtful comments and links to articles and your software for person-to-person resource matching. It is great that you and others are working on this issue and deliberately looking for ways to embed flexibility to adapt and respond to changing needs and the evolving environment we work/live in.

There is a helpful 2007 publication mentioned in "This Week in Philanthropy: May 21, 2008" produced by the Council on Foundations: http://www.cof.org/ThisWeek.cfm Disaster Grantmaking: A Practical Guide for Foundations and Corporations [PDF] (05/20/2008) European Foundation Center and the Council on Foundations

Whether you are a grantmaker or recipient - there are great tips here about creating relationships and plans in advance of a disaster. They suggest: "grantmakers can be more effective and strategic in addressing disasters by following eight principles of good disaster management:

1. Do no harm.
2. Stop, look and listen before taking action.
3. Don’t act in isolation.
4. Think beyond the immediate crisis to the long term.
5. Bear in mind the expertise of local organizations.
6. Find out how prospective grantees operate.
7. Be accountable to those you are trying to help.
8. Communicate your work widely and use it as an educational tool."

Based on those principles, they came up with action-oriented tips for nine key areas (which they explain in detail in the downloadable pdf document). Here are a few snippets that stood out for me:

1. Developing an internal plan for handling disaster requests. "Identify potential grantee partners in advance."
2. Learning about the disaster situation before responding. "Don’t make assumptions ...every disaster is different. ... Good sources of information include locally based [staff, grantees, partner organizations]".
3. Thinking about when to make a disaster grant. "Don’t wait for a disaster to occur. Consider supporting disaster prevention, early warning systems, preparedness..."
4. Deciding whether to provide cash assistance, or goods and services. "Spontaneous individual donations of food, clothing and household items arrive far too late, are often inappropriate, and can clog limited local transport, storage and distribution capacities."
5. Looking at the disaster management picture. "Fill important gaps between relief and long-term development"
6. Choosing a grantee. "Consider looking beyond the obvious choices to smaller indigenous organizations...which have an ongoing presence in a community, a local staff, and a commitment to participatory development"
7. Coordinating your disaster grants with others. "Explore partnerships and cooperation with other grantmakers. ...Communicate what you are doing with other grantmakers and with operational organizations responding to disasters on the ground."
8. Monitoring and evaluating disaster grants. "Grantmakers should follow up with their disaster grantees...to ensure that funds or donated products are used as intended. ... Such an evaluation can improve the effectiveness of future disaster grants."
9. Enhancing understanding of disasters. "Consider making a grant to send a member of the media on a site visit to a disaster area to publicize why the affected population was so vulnerable and what steps could be taken to reduce their vulnerability in the future."

Check it out.