Charities and donors are gearing up for what is becoming the largest response to a disaster since at least Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and is likely to be a years-long, billion-dollar recovery effort.

Giving during a disaster is important not just for the company’s good citizenship but also for their employees, many of which may be impacted directly or indirectly, and customers may be in that region.

The Center for Disaster Philanthropy (CDP) couldn’t handle the traffic to its donation page from Facebook, crashing the site yesterday. Facebook pledged to match every dollar up to $1 million for the CDP’s Hurricane Harvey Recovery Fund, which was prominently displayed when users logged into Facebook on Tuesday. The effort quickly raised $2 million for the Washington, D.C-based organization that reported revenue of $4.4 million last year.

Million-dollar pledges to assorted agencies, including American Red Cross, were announced by celebrities and sports teams, totaling at least $10 million. Proceeds from the final preseason game for the Houston Texans and Dallas Cowboys had been pledged to the United Way relief fund until the game was canceled this afternoon by the National Football League (NFL). Refunds are available but if they tickets are not refunded, they will go to the relief fund. Money that would have been generated from ticket sales will be matched by a donation from the Texans’ ownership, according to a statement.

Houston is home to many significant companies beyond the energy sector and corporate giving has taken on a prominent early role in the response. CNN estimated that corporations had pledged at least $65 million to Harvey relief efforts, as of this morning.

“Giving during a disaster is important not just for the company’s good citizenship but also for their employees, many of which may be impacted directly or indirectly, and customers may be in that region,” she said.

“We already know location really does matter when you look at corporate giving,” Osili said.  “What we can see so far, the range of companies involved, it’s not just one sector or type of company involved. The problems are so big, one sector can’t solve them.”

Read the source article at NonProfit Times

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Andy Segedin is a Staff Writer at the NonProfit Times.