At the moment, the only secular relief organization that indicates that they are on top of Haiti, and is a respected and effective organization, and so on and so forth, is Direct Relief International. Here is their web site.
UPDATE: If you are a US citizen and seek information on your relatives in Haiti, call this number: 888 407 4747
You’ll probably get a busy signal but keep trying.
If you know of any other secular organizations that are providing the opportunity to donate to help people in Haiti, please post them below.
Drs. without borders and the various UN groups are obvious cases, but so far their web sites don’t have a “help Haiti” link.
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AlertNet may have some info about who is doing what.
http://www.alertnet.org/
Operation USA seems to be taking action also.
Seriously, you only care to get help if it is secular? The fact that most help for victims is NOT secular should tell you something about godless people.
Doctors WIthout Borders now has a donation page for the Haiti earthquake victims https://donate.doctorswithoutborders.org/SSLPage.aspx?pid=219&&source=AUU090000DE0
I usually just give to Medicins Sans Frontieres and let _them_ prioritise where they use the money.
Chris @2: I want my money to be spent on things that actually help people, not on proselytizing and god-bothering. That’s why I just made my donation to MSF.
Chris, you could possibly be more wrong, but you’d have to work even harder. Of the largest disaster relief organizations, only the Red Cross is religious. Most of them are arms of the U.N., and the others, like MSF and CARE, are secular organizations. There is no question of “only if it is secular.”
Although the American Red Cross is very good at PR and, thus, gets it name splashed all over the news whenever there is a disaster, it doesn’t have the best history of getting targeted funds where the donors want them to go. Nor are they as geared to or equipped for international relief as many of the secular organizations that are dedicated to that purpose.
@ Martin I think you misunderstand the disaster response efforts of many of the mainstream religious groups. They do not proselytize. Support who you want, but don’t spread misinformation.
@ Stephanie — in spite of its name the Red Cross is a secular organization. I do agree with the rest of your point.
True, katydid13. They are secular in operation. However, in practice, they offer aid while flying the standard of the majority religion (cross or crescent) in most of the world. It would be very nice to see widespread adoption of the red crystal.
Seriously, you only care to get help if it is secular? The fact that most help for victims is NOT secular should tell you something about godless people.
Chris, that is inaccurate. A minority of the aid that goes into Haiti, as with other disasters, will be from religious organizations.
The reason that I post on this blog information about secular organizations is that whenever there is a disaster people email me and say “hey, would you post some links to secular organizations?”
I do not like sending money to Christian organizations because I don’t trust them to do what they say they will do with the money. This is because Christians often feel that they answer to a higher authority than inter-human ethics and morals, so they can be comfortable looking a fellow (non-Christian, sometimes) human in the eye and telling them a bald faced lie. In the case of relief, I assume that some of this money ultimately goes into missionary work which, in my view, should ALL be illegal, internationally and nationally, everywhere. For obvious reasons.
OK, now I’ve read some of the other points too. Chris, Martin, pay attention I’m addressing your concerns. No, the Red Cross and Red Crescent are not really religious, but they are at the same time. They have a de facto rule that the head of the organization not be an athiest, they fly a symbol of a major religion on their flag,etc.
But note, Chris, that I include the red cross on my list. I count it as secular, but I agree with Stephanie that it is top heavy and not the most effective way to get aid to the site in many instances. On the other hand, the Red Cross/Red Crescent (and there is also the US version, which has an international unit, and the international version) has major political clout.
Martin, when it comes to disaster relief, it is probably the case that most of the money is not spent on missionizing and other inappropriate activities. But as I say above, there is often slop in these systems. Also, an organization can become large and can have a large reach which can be used for their religious purposes but where the size and extent (and status and clout) can be built on managing these disasters.
Which is highly immoral and if there was a hell all those people would go there for exploiting the downtrodden in this way. So really, by sending this money to secular organizations, we are saving them from themselves.
It would be very nice to see widespread adoption of the red crystal.
The red A.
By the way, it is interesting that the Red Cross gets to be red. Had it been a liberal or progressive organization that called itself “red” it would have been tied to a stake and burned as a commie years ago.
We just started to donate 1$ from each purchase to Haiti victims.
Thanks to all good people.