It is the week before Christmas at the UK's busiest food bankand there are seasonal additions to the usual donations of food boxes.
As millions of dollars pour into emergency relief earmarked for victims of the World Trade Center disaster, New York City institutions from soup kitchens to the Metropolitan Museum of Art are afraid that the usual donations they count on to meet expenses may be vanishing.
The early indications, according to more than 30 interviews with philanthropy executives, researchers and consultants, are that, in general, the gifts by individuals to relief efforts are being made on top of, not instead of, their usual donations.
The Mercy Center in Asbury Park, which supplies about 7,000 families a year with food, clothing and shelter is also finding the demand heavier than usual but donations lagging, said Sister Carol Ann Henry.
And in 2009 UNRWA was clamoring even more than usual for donations.
The research further reveals that many of the donors with advance notice of a gift-card offer switched the locations and dates of their usual blood donations to sites where the rewards would be available.
Re "When Giving Leaves You Wanting" (Love & Money, Dec. 2), in which Ellyn Spragins found herself searching to make charitable donations that left her energized and feeling connected to the recipients: In 1990, as a 55-year-old childless widower, I began to tire of the usual requests for donations and the small, seemingly inconsequential gifts I made annually.
The Salvation Army, which operates 1,300 thrift shops in the United States, said the tough economy had led consumers to hold onto their old clothes longer and to use Web sites like eBay and Craigslist to make money from unwanted items, suppressing the usual flow of donations.
