"'Disaster fatigue' leads to drop in Americans' giving"
"by Lisa Tolin, Associated Press | May 20, 2008
NEW YORK - The numbers are almost too large to fathom, so many Americans stop trying. As bodies pile up in disaster after global disaster, even the most sympathetic souls can turn away.
Charities know this as "donor fatigue," but it might be more accurately described as disaster fatigue - the sense that these events are never-ending, uncontrollable, and overwhelming. Specialists say it is one reason Americans have contributed relatively little to victims of the Burma cyclone and China's earthquake.
Or the fact that our economy is in the shitter and the dollar is diarrhea?
I mean, NOT EVERYONE is hurting!
Ironically, the more bad news there is, the less likely people may be to give.
"Hearing about too many disasters makes some people not give at all, when they would have if it had been just one disaster," says Michal Ann Strahilevitz, who teaches marketing at Golden Gate University and specializes in factors at play in charitable giving.
But we keep forking it over for the bloody occupations!
Compared with such disasters as the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, those in China and Burma have generated just a trickle of aid. As of Friday, Americans had given about $12.1 million to charities for Burma, according to the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. The group said yesterday that it was too soon to count contributions to China.
A number of factors may be at play in the slow American response, including a lack of sympathy for the repressive governments involved, doubts about whether aid will get through, and an inclination to save money because of shaky economic times at home.
I'd say that is the overriding factor for most -- but NOT ALL!!!
But Americans may have also been influenced by the quick succession of monumental catastrophes in two distant lands. At least 130,000 people are dead or missing in the Burma cyclone, and more than 34,000 in China's earthquake.
"For the vast number of Americans, if they just gave to some disaster far away and then another disaster happens, in their mind that's clumped as 'faraway disaster,' " Strahilevitz says. "So they will feel, 'I just gave to a faraway disaster.' "
Just like FAR AWAY and INVISIBLE WARS, huh?
Naw, those get funded in perpetuity!
This problem came up after the 2004 Asian tsunami, an event that brought an avalanche of $1.92 billion in charity from the United States, according to the Giving USA Foundation. Hurricane Katrina eight months later generated even more, $5.3 billion.
But then fatigue seemed to set in. The earthquake in Pakistan that killed nearly 80,000 people generated $150 million from Americans. The Guatemala mudslide shortly thereafter that killed at least 800 was virtually forgotten. If one disaster can be galvanizing, several in a row can be paralyzing.
"It's too much pain, too much tragedy for someone to process, and so we tend to pull ourselves away from it and either close off from it out of psychological defense, or it overwhelms us," says Cynthia Edwards, a professor of psychology at Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C.
A string of tragedies can also make potential donors feel nervous about their own safety, making them less likely to give. That could be especially troubling now for Americans, many of whom are worried about their jobs and rising food and gas prices.
It's too soon to judge the effects of the economic downturn on giving, said Del Martin, chair of the Giving USA Foundation, although early figures show that donations rose in 2007."A lot of this is the MSM's fault, too.
They spend so much time on shit that the aftermath of these tragedies often gets forgotten!!!
