`Disaster fatigue' leads to drop in giving
NEW YORK (AP) - May 19, 2008 Charities know this as "donor fatigue," but it might be more
accurately described as disaster fatigue - the sense that these
events are never-ending, uncontrollable and overwhelming. Experts
say it is one reason Americans have contributed relatively little
so far to victims of the Myanmar cyclone and China's earthquake.
Ironically, the more bad news there is, the less likely people
may be to give.
"Hearing about too many disasters makes some people not give at
all, when they would have if it had been just one disaster," says
Michal Ann Strahilevitz, who teaches marketing at Golden Gate
University and specializes in the factors at play in charitable
giving.
Compared with disasters like the Asian tsunami and Hurricane
Katrina, those in China and Myanmar have generated just a trickle
of aid. As of Friday, Americans had given about $12.1 million to
charities for Myanmar, according to the Center on Philanthropy at
Indiana University. The group said on Monday that it was too soon
to count contributions to China.
A number of factors may be at play in the slow American
response, including a lack of sympathy for the repressive
governments involved, doubts about whether aid will get through,
and an inclination to save pennies because of shaky economic times
at home.
But Americans may have also been influenced by the quick
succession of monumental catastrophes in two distant lands. At
least 130,000 people are dead or missing in the Myanmar cyclone,
and more than 34,000 in China's earthquake.
"For the vast number of Americans, if they just gave to some
disaster far away and then another disaster happens, in their mind
that's clumped as `faraway disaster,"' Strahilevitz says. "So
they will feel, 'I just gave to a faraway disaster."'
This problem came up after the 2004 Asian tsunami, an event that
brought an avalanche of $1.92 billion in charity from the United
States, according to the Giving USA Foundation. Hurricane Katrina
eight months later generated even more, $5.3 billion.
But then fatigue seemed to set in. The earthquake in Pakistan
that killed nearly 80,000 people generated just $150 million from
Americans. And the Guatemala mudslide shortly thereafter that
killed at least 800 was virtually forgotten.
If one disaster can be galvanizing, several in a row can be
paralyzing.
"It's too much pain, too much tragedy for someone to process,
and so we tend to pull ourselves away from it and either close off
from it out of psychological defense, or it overwhelms us," says
Cynthia Edwards, a professor of psychology at Meredith College in
Raleigh, N.C.
A string of tragedies can also make potential donors feel
nervous about their own safety, making them less likely to give.
That could be especially troubling now for Americans, many of whom
are worried about their jobs and rising food and gas prices.
It's too soon to judge the effects of the economic downturn on
giving, says Del Martin, chair of the Giving USA Foundation,
although early figures show that donations rose in 2007. In
general, people tend to give to causes closer to home. In 2006,
Americans gave more than $295 billion to charity, but less than 4
percent of that went overseas.
One thing that may make people give to foreign causes is their
personal connection to a region, either by knowing someone there or
hearing an individual's story, Strahilevitz says. That's something
that's difficult when unpopular governments are involved, or media
access is restricted, as in Myanmar.
Lurma Rackley, spokeswoman for CARE USA, is heartened that
Americans are giving to Myanmar at all, considering the lack of
images from the disaster. "There's always concern that the tragedy
is going to be forgotten," Rackley says.
CARE USA, World Vision and Mercy Corps all say giving for
Myanmar is on pace to match the amount given after the Pakistan
earthquake, although the Myanmar death toll appears to be far
bigger. That's partly because of concerns about whether aid will
reach the intended recipients, with reports that Myanmar's military
government may be confiscating the aid or diverting it away from
those most in need.
That's part of why Dave Morris, 34, has yet to open his
checkbook - he's not sure he could really help.
Morris aims to give 10 percent of his income to causes such as
public radio, the Red Cross and breast cancer. But the engineer
from Ypsilanti, Mich., hasn't given to the relief efforts in
Myanmar and China, in part because the world's problems seem
impossibly large.
"If you thought about at this very second the number of people
who were suffering and dying, I could dedicate all my resources to
that and yet it would be a drop in the bucket," he says.
Still, experts in the field are optimistic that Americans may
still come through for victims of these disasters. The Giving USA
Foundation says companies are pledging relief funds for China,
perhaps because so many do business there.
"I think we may also see a surge of donations for the China
relief effort because of people's frustrations with the Myanmar
government's resistance to the aid effort there," says Gerard
Jacobs, director of the Disaster Mental Health Institute at
University of South Dakota.
Jacobs was in Bangkok working with the Asian Disaster
Preparedness Center when the cyclone struck Myanmar, and he got
word of the earthquake while in a meeting about helping governments
in the region to respond to victims' psychological needs.
"People may feel a sense of relief that the China earthquake
presents a situation where the public can genuinely make a
difference," he says.