The Charity Olympics

The Family Assistance Center at New York City's Pier 94 is the main facility for victims and families registering for assistance. Currently, when people enter the roughly 100,000-sq.-ft. building, they check in at a reception desk staffed by the N.Y.P.D. and are handed a badge that declares their status--FAMILY if they lost a family member, SUPPORT if they are a displaced worker or tenant. If people happen to be the relatives of a fire fighter or a police officer, they are escorted through the various agency cubicles by a member of those departments. Otherwise, they are handed a checklist of agencies and sent off to navigate the maze alone.

Individual caseworkers for up to 25,000 people may seem impractical, but one organization that's amenable to taking on at least part of the burden is Manhattan-based Safe Horizon. With 800 employees, it is the largest victim-assistance organization in the country. To date, Safe Horizon has given 11,280 people checks averaging about $900, most of them written on the spot. It is widely viewed as one of the relief effort's most effective agencies. After targeting a need--short-term funding for people who lived and worked near ground zero--Safe Horizon's CEO Gordon Campbell approached the September 11th Fund, an arm of the United Way and New York Community Trust, which had $150 million from the Tribute to Heroes telethon but no specific mission. The fund administrators were thrilled to pour money into an organization with a goal and support staff already in place. "We now have a revolving fund that they replenish," says Campbell. "We keep going back there every four days to ask for money."

To prevent turf wars and overlap, some charities have begun clustering together by need. Funds for mental health, scholarships and the various fire-fighter and police funds have all made inroads by divvying up territory and working together. But far too many still don't know the territory. The N.Y.P.D. says 4,136 people are dead or missing; the New York Times estimate is 2,950. Whichever figure turns out to be closer to the truth, the real problem is that traffic at local assistance centers is tapering off. That's why some charities are actually thrilled to hear those in need on talk-radio broadcasts complaining about not receiving aid. At least that way the charities can find them. "We can do all we can to spread the word, but we need those people we're trying to help to tell us they exist," says Jon Boroshok, spokesman for the Twin Towers Orphan Fund, which offers scholarship money to children who lost parents in the disaster.

Other funds are just now putting their machinery in motion. Joshua Gotbaum, former executive associate director and controller of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, and Franklin Thomas, a former Ford Foundation president, were named CEO and chairman, respectively, of the September 11th Fund just two weeks ago. Now they have to figure out how to best spend $320 million. "Our board hasn't even met yet," says Thomas, when asked about the September 11th Fund's future goals.

The reality is, money of that magnitude doesn't move very fast. And charities don't want to spend it all at once: many want to be there for long-term needs that neither they nor those they are helping can imagine. In Oklahoma City, a cameraman walked into the Community Foundation offices six years after the bombing and asked for counseling. Saving money for such causes may not meet with the public hunger for immediate relief, but no one would argue that it's money wasted. Still, Spitzer believes that "since the charities have received so much money, they have an obligation to do this thoughtfully, but also rather quickly. People have a right to see exactly how their money is going to be spent." The clock is ticking.