About This Project
As the only full-time resource devoted to disaster philanthropy, the Center for Disaster Philanthropy partnered with Foundation Center (now Candid) in 2014 to track philanthropic funding flows to disasters. Measuring the State of Disaster Philanthropy is the first effort to establish baseline data, aggregate multiple data streams, and track disaster giving. By increasing the information available on disaster giving, philanthropists, government agencies, and NGOs, we will be better able to coordinate and make more strategic decisions, ultimately resulting in more effective disaster philanthropy and assistance.
The project’s work is guided by an expert advisory committee and consultation with key stakeholders. We look forward to broad participation and collaboration across the disaster philanthropy field, and together, to creating useful and relevant tools to assist in donor and grantee decision making, transparency, and coordination.
Through Measuring the State of Disaster Philanthropy, donors, NGOs, government, media, and more will now know exactly how much money is spent on which disasters each year, by whom, and for what activities.
Taxonomy
At the inception of this project, in consultation with an expert technical advisory committee, Foundation Center developed a taxonomy to classify giving by both disaster assistance strategy and type of disasters. To facilitate comparisons among different sources of disaster-related data, this taxonomy was applied to all data analyzed for this project. (For a detailed description of the project taxonomy, see Measuring the State of Disaster Philanthropy 2014: Data to Drive Decisions, p. 15.)
In this taxonomy, types of disasters fall into four broad buckets: natural disasters, man-made accidents, complex humanitarian emergencies, and disasters-general (funding for unspecified disasters or multiple, disparate disasters).
The taxonomy related to disaster assistance strategies lifts up the disaster life cycle, highlighting points of intervention before, during, and after disasters.
Although much attention is focused on communities in the immediate aftermath of disasters, there is growing recognition that more attention needs to be paid to resilience, mitigation, and preparedness efforts that help minimize the economic, social, and human consequences of disaster. Likewise the disaster life cycle lifts up the importance of investing in longer-term recovery efforts to ensure that communities re-build with an eye toward being able to withstand the impact of disasters more fully.
Data Sources
This project examines giving from foundation, government, and corporate donors, in addition to funds raised through online platforms, to provide an emerging picture of disaster-related philanthropy. Beyond foundations, data sources were chosen because they were publicly available. In the future, we hope to partner with other organizations to capture additional funding data. The dashboard includes data from the following sources. More detailed information is available on the respective Giving Data pages.
Comprehensive source of data on U.S. foundation giving with a growing database of global foundations
Central database for official development assistance from the 29 OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) member states
Comprehensive source of real-time humanitarian aid contributions; to avoid double counting, we exclude contributions from DAC donors and U.S. foundations
Detailed information on domestic grants by this U.S. government agency for disasters
Aggregated data on disbursements made by this U.S. government agency for disasters
Aggregated data on disbursements made by this U.S. government agency for disasters
Key source of data on corporate giving for disasters
Aggregated data on contributions made by corporations, based on CECP’s Giving in Numbers report.
Aggregated data on disaster-designated contributions collected through its software platform
Relevant Links
- Measuring the State of Disaster Philanthropy 2022 Key Findings Report
- Philanthropy and COVID-19: Examining two years of giving
- Measuring the State of Disaster Philanthropy 2021 Key Findings Report
- Philanthropy and COVID-19: Measuring one year of giving
- Measuring the State of Disaster Philanthropy 2020 Key Findings Report
- Philanthropy and COVID-19 in the First Half of 2020
- Measuring the State of Disaster Philanthropy 2019 Key Findings Report
- U.S. Household Disaster Giving in 2017 and 2018
- Measuring the State of Disaster Philanthropy 2018 Key Findings Report
- Measuring the State of Disaster Philanthropy 2017 Key Findings Report
- Measuring the State of Disaster Philanthropy 2016 Key Findings Report
- Measuring the State of Disaster Philanthropy 2015 Key Findings Report
- Measuring the State of Disaster Philanthropy 2014 Report
- Measuring the State of Disaster Philanthropy Mapping Platform
- Tutorial Videos on how to use the data and mapping tools to make more effective funding decisions
- Disaster Philanthropy Playbook
Contact Us
Center for Disaster Philanthropy
Tanya Gulliver-Garcia, Director of Learning and Partnerships
Tanya.Gulliver-Garcia@disasterphilanthropy.org
(504) 638-2863