| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Economy |
| Spontaneous Orders in Charity |
| 2005-01-04 |
| Austrian economists love to talk about "spontaneous order" in business-type settings, but it seems that markets can respond even to urgent calls for charity. From today's WSJ (subscription required): Across the country a staggering number of fund-raising efforts are sprouting up to aid victims of the tsunami disaster. In addition to giants such as the American Red Cross a number of newer charities are emerging to draw tsunami relief funds. Among them: SurfAid International, of Encinitas, Calif., created to "coordinate the support of the global surfing community," and adoptsrilanka.com, a volunteer group founded just last week by a hotelier in Sri Lanka to quickly bring aid to ruined coastal communities. Do Something, a New York-based youth service group, has organized a "Kids Tsunami Relief Fund" to help youngsters raise money. Among the group's ideas: make the bed, take out the garbage or serve parents breakfast in bed in exchange for donations from mom and dad. ...Everyone from chefs to college kids are mobilizing to show support for tsunami victims. A coalition of students at Harvard University started their own fund-raising drive, while a Christian fellowship at Princeton is donating the proceeds of its "Winterlude" program to World Vision, a Christian relief organization. In New York, a number of well-known chefs are holding a dinner Jan. 11 to benefit Doctors Without Borders. New Year's celebrations turned into spontaneous tsunami benefits. On Friday, Brooklyn, N.Y., roommates Arshad Chowdhury and Benjamin Skinner, inspired by a college friend who had survived the tsunamis, sent out e-mails to the 350 invitees of their New Year's Eve party asking them to bring donations. They raised about $550 for tsunami relief. "Pretty good for 20-somethings who live paycheck to paycheck," says Mr. Skinner, a 28-year-old assistant to Richard Holbrooke, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. In Merrillville, Ind., members of the Indian Medical Association of Northwest Indiana set up a fund and raised $71,000 in pledges in the first five minutes of their New Year's Eve party. Major retailers, such as Amazon.com Inc., Wal-mart Stores Inc., Safeway Inc. and Whole Foods Market Inc. have been collecting funds for the American Red Cross and other charities online or in stores. Amazon.com, which since Tuesday had replaced much of its home page with a plea for donations to the Red Cross, raised nearly $12.2 million from more than 151,000 individual donations as of yesterday afternoon. A San Carlos, Calif., company called AuctionDrop announced a program under which people can drop off used cameras, computers and other consumer electronics at UPS Stores, and AuctionDrop will sell them on eBay, donating the net proceeds to aid group CARE USA. |
| Posted by:tipper |