How to Help Houston
Surely, it’s not news to any of you that Hurricane Harvey hit Southeastern Texas pretty hard recently. The flooding is severe. Many people have been displaced and some have been lost. Those of us on The First Coast are all too familiar with what Texans are only beginning to deal with. If you are anything like us, you felt helpless. We don’t have a boat like the Cajun Navy and we are far away. What, if anything, can we do? The first thing that comes to mind is to donate money. Those on the ground are going to need resources and that is easy to send.
But don’t just go with the first charitable organization you see or hear of. Some are more efficient than others and I want to help those effected, not line the pockets of an executive. We are not referring to scams, though those are out there. There are terrible, heartless people out there that will take advantage of the charity of others. What we are talking about is the efficiency of large charitable organizations that use funds to build large infrastructure, pay executives and spend a lot on advertising.
Charity Navigator, who bill themselves as “Your Guide To Intelligent Giving”, is a non-profit themselves. They have been in existence for 15 years, they compile tax documents and score/rate charities in two categories; “Financial” and “Accountability & Transparency”. The Financial Performance Metrics used to do so include: Program Expenses, Administrative Expenses, Fundraising Expenses, Fundraising Efficiency, Working Capital Ratio, Program Expenses Growth and Liabilities to Assets. They also use a number of metrics to score the accountability and transparency, all based on tax form 990 filed with the IRS.
One Charity with which you may not be familiar is “Houston Food Bank” (with a perfect 100 score). There are many others, we are not suggesting one over another, but we do ask that you take a look to see if your charity is rated before you click send, because not all of them are. One charity that has gained a lot of attention is that of famed Houston Texans Defensive End J.J. Watt. The Justin J Watt foundation is relatively new and Charity Navigator requires 7 years of tax filing to make an assessment. J.J. is well known in the community and has put his name on the line guaranteeing that all funds and supplies will be allocated, by him personally, in the community. Again, not all charitable organizations are scored but many are.
The Kavie Stahl Team has made a donation and encourage you to do the same, if possible. The tragedy of this storm is compounded by the fact that many homes were not in traditional flood zones, so they did not have flood insurance. Thankfully, all of the Stahl family living in the Houston area are safe, and although the damage has not been fully assessed, we are confident that Texas will recover in time.
