Good Intentions Are Not Enough

Interesting articles and posts - December 12 - 19

Interesting articles and post from the past week

Study suggests orphanages are not so bad - New York Times - Recent study shows that orphanages may be not be as bad as previous studies show and may be as good as keeping children in the community if they are done right.

Making a Profit Off an Appeal for Nonprofits - New York Times - discusses how much money goes to the people that are paid to solicit funds for charities on street corners and in malls

Amaze Your Friends with these Nonprofit Factoids - Blue Avocado - Compiled information on work in nonprofits in the US.

Part 1 of 3: "I do not think it means what you think it means" Tales from the Hood - Discusses the fact that aid agencies need to become better at explaining their work to donors because currently donors have many mistaken ideas about aid

Part 2 of 3: "You can't handle the truth" - Tales from the Hood - The reason aid agencies aren't completely honest with donors may be because they worry about how they will handle the truth.

Linking aid to results: why are some development workers anxious? - Owen Abroad - Discusses a new concept being tested of paying for results rather than inputs

Some lessons from recent work with international NGOs that will also apply to national and local NGOs - Going International - Some good advice to keep in mind regardless of which types of charitable organizations you work with

Charities fake their numbers to look good - Money Watch - Looks at how aid agencies report their in-kind donations to make it appear that a greater percentage of their donations go to programs and not administration. Similar to this post from Aid Watch - Aid Watch Grinch Edition: Are we mean to ask that NGO ads not be simplistic and wrong

Interesting articles and posts - Dec 6 - 13

Interesting posts and news articles from the past week

Interesting articles and posts - Nov 22 - Dec 5

Interesting articles and posts from the past two weeks

Interesting posts and articles - Oct. 15 - 21

Interesting blog posts and articles from the previous week.

Interesting articles and posts - Nov. 8 - 14

Asia: Breastfeeding more crucial in emergencies - IRIN - Looks at problems caused by donated formula after a disaster and the difficulty of stopping baby formula donations when so many actors are involved in disaster relief

Malawi: HIV drugs used to ferment local gin - AfricaNews - Reports on a practice of using HIV drugs to speed up the fermenting process of gin.

Mobile Applications Development: Observations - Build it Kenny and they will come - Lists factors to keep in mind when developing mobile applications, good advice for any aid project.

Confusion on Where Money Lent via Kiva Goes - New York Times - Looks at the recent Kiva controversy

Interesting articles and blogs - Nov. 1 - 7

A round up of interesting news articles and blog posts from the past week.

Interesting articles and posts - Oct 24 - 31

A weekly roundup of interesting articles and posts.

Interesting articles and posts - October 11 - 17

Related articles and posts - September 27 - October 3, 2009

Interesting new articles and blog posts from the previous week. There were a lot of great articles this past week.

The number of natural disasters is on the rise

With the Samoan tsunami, the Indonesia earthquake and the Philippine typhoon all occurring within a few weeks of each other, it seems more apparent than ever that there has been a steady increase in the rate and severity of natural disasters. According to the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters Thirty years of natural disasters 1974-2003: The numbers

"Over the past 30 years, the number of reported natural disasters has increased steadily, from slightly fewer than 100 in 1975 to a little more than 300 in 2003, an almost four-fold increase."

In general there are three primary factors causing this trend.