Report Casts Doubt on White House's New Strategy to Rely on Nonprofits in Disaster Relief

[babylonsister]

Report Casts Doubt on White House's New Strategy to Rely on Nonprofits in Disaster Relief
By DonByrd Fri Oct 19, 2007

A new report from the Rockefeller Institute of Government profiles the role of nonprofit groups - including religious organizations - in Gulf Coast disaster relief efforts of the last 2 years. As the Roundtable points out, the reality of those groups' limitations stands in "sharp contrast" to the newly announced White House strategy that will depend on them more and more in future disaster scenarios. In effect, the ongoing effort to funnel government's social service responsibilities to faith-based groups has led - as many predicted - to a growing and unsustainable reliance on religious and community organizations to perform the duties of the government.

The Bush Administration's National Strategy for Homeland Security, released on October 5, includes this affirmation that the central recovery effort in a disaster is not the job of the government, but of organizations like non-profits:

Going forward, we must develop a comprehensive - but not bureaucratic or government-centric - framework wherein communities that are directly or indirectly affected by a large-scale disaster can flourish on a sustainable path to rebuilding and revitalization. This framework and accompanying plans must be closely guided by, and have at their core, the citizens, private sector, and faith-based and community organizations that are most severely and directly affected. After all, individual citizens and the private and non-profit sectors are our society's wells of creativity, innovation, and resourcefulness, and they have the greatest stake in, and urgency for, revitalizing their community.

The research of the Rockefeller Report ("Response, Recovery, and the Role of the Nonprofit Community in the Two Years Since Katrina and Rita"), however, offers a contrary conclusion that says, essentially, the White House strategy won't work.

Nonprofit, community-based, and faith-based organizations are well-suited to help out in disaster response and recovery. They are flexible, they can adapt their missions, they can marshal resources, and they can get around stultifying paperwork. But even the most efficient, well-run, well-funded nonprofit group has a limited reach. For all of the work that the nonprofit sector has done and continues to do in the hurricane recovery effort, it is still more akin to a drop in the bucket rather than a giant wave.

more...

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2007/10/19/1946/2490/Front_Page/Report_Casts_Doubt_on_White_House_s_New_Strategy_to_Rely_on_Nonprofits_in_Disaster_Relief

[xfundy]

1. Next time there's a disaster, they'll help a lot!

By moving to higher ground and PRAYING. That'll fix EVERYTHING!

[babylonsister]

2. I wonder if the churches and non-profits will be providing

water for the south, a disaster in the making?

[Richard Steele]

3. The B*sh misAdministration motto: "Too Busy Stealing to Govern". grrrecommended