Donated Goods in Disaster Response

Unsolicited donated goods shipped to a disaster area during the emergency has been a long standing issue. The following quote from the September 1978 NVOAD Newsletter nicely sums up this continuing problem:

YOUR HELP CAN HURT

Once again, during the Central Texas floods of August, we've had an example of a well intentioned but ill conceived shipment of used clothing and canned goods to a disaster area, already being adequately assisted by Red Cross, other Voluntary Organizations, and the Federal government.

A shipment collected by citizens of a Northern city to be sent to the disaster area provided tons of clothing and food on a sister city basis. The supplies were sent by government aircraft and apparently were not requested by disaster relief agencies on the scene, and in fact were not needed. End result? A logistical problem for those already warehousing supplies which were needed and a needless expenditure for transportation.

A year later the November-December 1979 Newsletter excerpted from a report on midwestern disasters by then Region IV FEMA Director Dale Milford in which he described the chaos created by mountains of unsolicited used clothing, food, pots and pans, and furniture. Storage facilities were overtaxed far and wide from the disaster area. Disaster agencies announced that "only cash donations were now needed, but this attitude was deemed mercenary by .many. In the history of disasters...one of the major recorded problems has been this inexplicable desire of the American public to pour out its goodwill in every form except money." One might also add the inexplicable need of the public to clean out the attic and ship it to the disaster site instead of the local voluntary agency equipped to receive, sort, and distribute donations (or to the local dump if that be its quality).

This problem was not all created by the public. In some disasters local political leaders on the scene went on radio and TV pleading for food and clothing to be sent. The news media responded by taking leadership roles in ad hoc collection drives. Major disasters in the late 1980's and early 90's were confounded with add-on traffic disasters of loaded long-distance trucks clogging what was left of highways looking for a place - any place - to unload their seemingly randomly selected cargoes..

Early NVOAD efforts in this area were pretty much restricted to reminding its own members of the need for them to educate the public and the media regarding problems in unsolicited goods donations and discouraging public officials and other community leaders from making public appeals soliciting donations of ill-defined character..

In 1985, the NVOAD sponsored a study on Unmet Needs of Disaster Victims in the
United States, conducted under contract by the Hazards Assessments Laboratory of the Colorado State University (see description of the study on pp.28 and 29). One less prominent aspect of the study report was the discussion of the problem of donated goods. On p. 7 of the report it is noted: "In fact the problem of a deluge of donated resources - frequently inappropriate items...- can itself create an overwhelming coordination difficulty, while the agencies attempt to deal with the outpouring of less-than-helpful goods. Even in attempting to dispose of these unneeded donations, agencies are placed in an untenable position. They must spend resources hauling the material to the dump, while they are publicly criticized if they are observed 'throwing away' the donations for disaster victims." In discussing gaps in emergency assistance, the report noted again that study respondents commented that there is too much emergency assistance and that media coverage "showed so much help at the disaster scene that needed volunteers stopped coming." One of the study conclusions was "A much greater degree of coordination of resources - money, goods, and manpower - is required to eliminate unproductive turf struggles and wasteful expenditure of resources intended for disaster victims."(p. 34) The conclusions also noted that "Much more public education is required concerning the needs of disaster victims, the limited federal resources available for disaster relief, and what the public can do that will be useful and effective, Educating media personnel is one part of educating the public."

At an EXCOM meeting in March 1986, Bob Vessey of ARC received permission to have it noted in the minutes that "recent widely publicized appeals especially by government officials for in-kind donations have created major difficulties for disaster response and need to be discouraged" urging the membership to discourage such appeals at every opportunity especially in dealing with officials. Between that time and 1992 hurricanes Hugo and Andrew only served to re-emphasize the acute nature of the problem.

In presenting an update on FEMA activities at the January 1990 NVOAD annual meeting, a FEMA official commented on the response to Hurricane Hugo in August 1989. He noted that the problem of in-kind donations took up a lot of manpower resources that should have been applied to direct disaster assistance but instead were side tracked to the handling of in-kind gifts (or offers of such) which were in some instances stimulated by appeals by the political leadership who demurred at turning them off even when they became a huge burden. He indicated that FEMA would be addressing such problems although at the time he did not indicate what direction changes might take.

Just prior to Hurricane Hugo it had been noted by the Federal Catastrophic Disaster Response Group composed of Federal agencies having responsibilities in disaster response and the American Red Cross that the Federal government had no central policy or procedures for handling the many offers of donations and volunteer assistance received by Federal agencies at times of disaster. The Group was working on a catastrophic Disaster Plan and established an Interagency Donations Task Force to develop a Federal policy on donations. Before the task force could begin its work, two major disasters, Hurricane Hugo in September and the Loma Prieta Earthquake in October 1989 took place and resulted in outpourings of offers and shipments of unsolicited goods and services made to Federal agencies, the White House and even to Congress as if to validate the need for coordinated Federal policy. Unfortunately the disasters further delayed the task force several months.

The Task Force set as its goals the following: defining the scope of the donations problem; determining the Federal role in handling donations in relation to State/local governments and voluntary organizations; and identifying approaches to handling offers of donations and logistics of both accepted and unsolicited shipments. By the Spring of 1990 a draft policy and procedures report was developed. Recommendations on several key issues were postponed such as who would manage the overall policy implementation; who would handle a proposed central phone number (such as an 800 number) and related data base for recording offers and acceptances; what kind of central phone number to establish - regular number with 202 area code, 800 number or 900 number; what data base access would be permitted, and especially which, if any, voluntary organizations should have access to the data..

FEMA officials sent a draft of materials on the proposed policy and procedures to the Chair-person Brother Joseph Berg for comment by NVOAD members. The Executive Committee of NVOAD made extensive comments during discussion at its June 1990 meeting which were forwarded to FEMA by letter which was supplemented by the FEMA liaison, Marsha Sumner who was present at the meeting. Overall EXCOM found the materials as drafted at that point lacking in clarity especially as to what would be done. It saw fundamental policy issues needing to be looked at before any action was taken. It proposed that a task force of government and voluntary agencies study the nature of collaborative effort both broadly and in the context of donations. A new independent structure within the voluntary network was seen as needed to deal with the coordination of donated goods and services. The idea of an 800 or 900 telephone number with data base and information and referral center tied into a network involving all of the players was favorably received. A joint meeting of representatives of NVOAD, FEMA, the Task Force, and its sub committee was proposed to lay the groundwork for consideration of the fundamental issues and the process to be followed (see Article 16 of the NVOAD Executive Committee minutes of June 14, 1990).

Subsequently FEMA revised the Interagency Donations Taskforce Report, and Scott Martin, Chief, Temporary Housing Branch of FEMA reviewed it with EXCOM at its September 1990 meeting and distributed copies of the updated draft as a prelude to further discussions between NVOAD and FEMA. Then at the January 1991 NVOAD Annual Meeting, Thomas Antuch FEMA's Office of Disaster Assistance Programs and FEMA representative on the Interagency Donations Task Force made a presentation to the NVOAD membership. They said that there appeared to be no basis in legislative authority for FEMA to handle goods and private funds. They saw the Federal role as assisting the States in coordinating needs with assistance offers but not getting involved in unsolicited donations. Voluntary organizations were acknowledged as having a major role in donations and as being better equipped to deliver needed materials to disaster victims.. They felt that in Hurricane Hugo and the Loma Prieta Earthquake the problem of donations only delayed all the other Federal response functions. These disasters pushed FEMA more into a response mode as contrasted with the earlier funding mode. A proactive FEMA may mean gaps in performance for some time especially if FEMA is to play a clearinghouse role in donations. Donations will be a real problem for a long time for government agencies at all levels.

Continuing its review of the latest version of the donations policy report at its March 1991 meeting , EXCOM decided to appoint a small NVOAD task group to meet with appropriate FEMA staff to discuss NVOAD's views on the proposed policies, the restrictive language, and other aspects of concern. The task group consisted of Chair Col. Walter French of the Salvation Army, Monte Sahlin of Adventist Community Services, and Bobby Baines of American Red Cross. To follow up its review, the NVOAD task group sent a letter to FEMA staff with NVOAD comments and offered that the NVOAD sub-committee meet with FEMA staff.. In September 1991 John McKay of FEMA replied agreeing that a meeting would be useful and that Col. French and Marsha Sumner make the arrangements.

At the March 1992 EXCOM meeting, the NVOAD task force reported on discussions with Bruce Price and Marsha Sumner of FEMA and discussed a FEMA concept paper on Federal donations policy and a related "Silver Lining Project" designed to educate the public on how to contribute to a disaster relief effort. They reported on FEMA progress in developing a computer system and procedures to implement the donations policy concepts. FEMA requested NVOAD concurrence on the concept paper and input to compare the data systems and procedures of NVOAD members for compatibility and content. The subcommittee was satisfied with FEMA's very positive attitude, the general concept and recommended continuing dialogue on procedures and implementation. EXCOM approved continuing its task force with Monte Sahlin as Chair (at Col. French's request); endorsed the concept paper with some important provisos; and requested FEMA to circulate the concept paper and related materials to State VOADs.

On August 24, 1992, Hurricane Andrew hit South Florida and a few days later struck across the Gulf of Mexico into Louisiana.. The affected areas were soon flooded with thousands of tractor trailer loads of donated goods. Unfortunately the donated goods and services policies and procedures under discussion for several years were not in place . The initial result was that the donations management systems of Federal/State governments and voluntary organizations were overwhelmed. Valuable lessons were learned as hotline telephone numbers and related data bases were set up by several organizations. One was operated within Florida by the State government. National hotlines were set up by the Adventist Community Services and another by Volunteers in Technical Assistance (VITA) under contract with FEMA. When the contract funds ran out, VITA received volunteer help from the Adventist Community Services. At the September 1992 meeting of NVOAD/EXCOM it was decided to have its task force on donated goods renew discussions with FEMA with a proposal that NVOAD take over leadership on donations policy including operation of the FEMA hotline, possibly under a contract, and that any input from FEMA on the hotline be handled by the NVOAD task force (at that time consisting of M. Sahlin, Chair, B. Baines, and L. Detweiler who had become the chairperson of NVOAD).

At the November 1992 EXCOM meeting the task force reported that it had met with six representatives of the Interagency Donations Taskforce at their request regarding the proposed donations policy. Most of the meeting time was spent in reflecting on what happened without a donations policy during Hurricane Andrew. The NVOAD task force delivered to FEMA the proposal that FEMA contract with NVOAD or one or more of its organization members to operate a donations hotline. During Hurricane Andrew the hotline which operated under contract with FEMA handled 8,000 calls, many from people selling goods rather than donating. In contrast the hotline of Adventist Community Services handled 15 to 30,000 calls almost all of which offered donations. The Interagency Taskforce planned a report on the hurricane experience with donated goods and offered to have the NVOAD task force review it and hold another meeting. EXCOM approved the task force actions and the continued negotiations with FEMA.

In early March 1993, VITA under contract to FEMA called a meeting to evaluate the working of the donated goods policy during Hurricane Andrew response. It took the form of a workshop of 20 or so persons from State and local government (EMA's), a few other Federal agencies, FEMA staff, other knowledgeable people, American Red Cross, The Salvation Army, NVOAD, and VITA. The focus was on recommendations to FEMA on issues in revising donations policy; on the roles played by FEMA, State governments, voluntary organizations, cargo haulers, donor groups, communications and others; and on guidelines which FEMA could establish for centralized donations handling by the State government during a disaster on the pattern of the Florida relief goods center and including an 800 number operated by State government for collecting donations and diverting trucks to receiving centers and distributing donations of goods and money among the private voluntary organizations active in the disaster..

The NVOAD Chair, Monte Sahlin, informed FEMA that the approach taken by the workshop was not acceptable to NVOAD and raised some positive alternative approaches from the voluntary organization point of view.

In response to the concerns raised by NVOAD and the problems in the aftermath of responses to Hurricane Andrew and also Hurricane Iniki, FEMA set up a Donations Steering Committee including representation from Federal agencies, NVOAD, Red Cross Salvation Army, State and local governments (NEMA and NCCEM), Florida governor's office, VITA, and the Department of State Office of Foreign Assistance along with FEMA. This group recommended a permanent Donations Coordinator at FEMA, a donations coordination team at each disaster, a national donations information system (NDIS), operation of an inter-agency 800 number for offers; a major effort to educate the public; and training for disaster personnel regarding the new system.. The plan included specific VOAD roles as follows:

• A VOAD donations coordination representative will be on the team at each disaster site
• The VOAD rep will assist ad hoc volags in dealing with the system and access to the NDIS database (government agencies will refer all "new" volags to this rep to handle these relationships);
• NVOAD will participate in the training and public education efforts;
• NVOAD will handle pre-registration of national volags who need to be connected with NDIS;
• NVOAD will assign member organizations to consult with local groups desiring to organize collections of donated goods and government agencies will refer to NVOAD .any groups coming to their attention.

It was part of the proposal that the Donations Steering Committee will become a permanent advisory committee to FEMA and continue to build the system.. Several subcommittees were set up to develop procedures for the various functions of the overall system. The Donations Steering Committee prepared the Donations Guidance Manual published by FEMA and the Committee is now a permanent advisory group to FEMA. Development of the system continues. NVOAD has made its task force a permanent committee to represent it on the Donations Steering Committee.

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