CITIZEN-FUNDED CRUSADES:

U.S. aid eclipsed by private donors (Joyce Howard Price, April 20, 2006, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)

U.S. foreign aid from private sources totaled $71.2 billion in 2004, a sum more than 3? times greater than the foreign aid the U.S. government provided that year, according to a study by the Hudson Institute. [...]

"What struck me working on this first Index was the explosion in the number of nongovernmental organizations that promote entrepreneurship by helping start-up businesses with training and acquiring venture capita. Traditional international grantmakers ... are now joined by multinational companies, business schools, investment bankers, and new foundations in finding new ways to help poor people prosper," said Carol C. Adelman, director of the Hudson Institute's Center for Global Prosperity, in an introduction.

She noted that charitable organizations, such as CARE, Save the Children, Catholic Relief Services, and World Vision, "have new colleagues who are experimenting with online giving to overseas projects, cutting out middlemen and expensive overhead and striving for maximum transparency and accountability."

Support from foundations, charities, corporations and religious groups accounts for only a third of all the private donations made abroad. The other two-thirds comes from immigrants living in this country, who send money home.

The study says "massive amounts of money are sent home by immigrants and temporary workers" either individually or collectively through hundreds of so-called hometown associations throughout the U.S.

The far Right deludes itself that it can turn off the spigot and not create even more immigration.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 20, 2006 12:31 PM