Know of any good New Orleans-based charities?

December 23, 2005 4:14 PM

I'm looking for a charity related to rebuilding New Orleans to donate to as a gift to someone that used to live there and was heartbroken by the hurricane aftermath. The Red Cross or United Way seem too big and non-specific. I'd like to give to something with a bit more direct impact on improving things there. Suggestions?
posted by mathowie to Grab Bag (7 answers total)

At the risk of being stunningly obvious, I'd go with Habitat for Humanity - New Orleans.
posted by Space Kitty at 4:19 PM on December 23, 2005

Here's a better link with more specific info on Operation Home Delivery - their Hurricane Katrina relief effort.
posted by Space Kitty at 4:22 PM on December 23, 2005

New Orleans musicians fund.

New Orleans writers.
posted by bukvich at 5:16 PM on December 23, 2005

Community foundations by their very nature have intimate knowledge of the needs, cultures and resources in their respective communities. They also have working relationships with the local non-profits and service providers, and will know who is effective and who isn't. For that reason, you might look into the Greater New Orleans Foundation
Happy giving!
posted by Skychief at 7:19 PM on December 23, 2005

Also, my friends still in New Orleans would really appreciate it if you could write to your local U. S. House Representative and your Senators and tell them that you wholeheartedly support more federal relief. There was a bill that failed last week (the Baker bill) which would have provided stop loss relief to homeowners. A common situation is a homeowner with a house plus lot appraised for X on 28 Aug, totally destroyed, insured in most cases for the building and the contents which may have been .33X with the rest of the appraised value in the located lot which now could be worthless. But their remaining mortgage is enough to suck them into bankruptcy. The Baker bill would have put a stop loss at .4X, but the lawmakers thought that was too generous, as a person could have gotten .27X from the feds, which could have been .27 * 500000 or $135000.

I am not sure how strongly I would be advocating bailing them out but such a citizen is still going to be taking a $200000 hit. There are thousands of families in situations like this. I know personally of a couple dozen of them.

There was one extended family on the front page of the Times Picayune a couple weeks ago where they had a dozen homes within a few blocks of each other, cumulatively valued at close to three million, and they were all totally wiped out. Except for insurance checks for the building & contents.
posted by bukvich at 7:19 PM on December 23, 2005

I pre-ordered this book yesterday as a gift for an equally heartbroken friend:

"Help support small publishing and the restoration of an important city by ordering Do You Know today. We will be monitoring the performances of relief organizations and donating the profits of our pre-orders to groups we feel are doing the best work. And the rest of the money helps us keep operating."
posted by mumble at 11:36 PM on December 23, 2005

I'm personally a big fan of Modest Needs, a charity that makes one-time grants to people who've been hit with an unpredictable expense of some kind that would otherwise send them down the road towards bankruptcy. It's not a New Orleans-specific charity, but if you specify that you want your donation to go to the Hurricane Relief Fund, it will be used for helping Katrina victims.
posted by rachelv at 7:36 PM on December 24, 2005