Ethics Newsline®

From Harris Interactive:

“The American public’s attitudes to, and perceptions of, nonprofits, including charities, foundations, and other philanthropic organizations is generally positive, but substantial minorities hold somewhat negative opinions of nonprofits in general. Individual charities which were actively involved in helping the victims of Hurricane Katrina mostly receive strong positive ratings. However, FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) is rated negatively by a 72 percent majority.

“These are some of the results of a Harris Poll conducted online by Harris Interactive® among a nationwide cross-section of 1,833 U.S. adults between October 11 and 17, 2005. It measures, therefore, the public’s reactions to how nonprofits responded to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the tsunami which devastated parts of Indonesia, Sri Lanka and other countries in Southeast Asia.

“The main findings of the survey include:

• “The overall average public rating of nonprofits (defined as ‘including charities, private foundations and other philanthropic groups’) is 65 on a scale of 1 to 100. In other words, it is generally positive.
• “The segments of the population which give generally better than average marks to nonprofits are younger adults, Hispanics, and people with graduate or post graduate degrees…. There is little difference between the ratings given by Republicans, Democrats or Independents.
• “Notwithstanding these generally positive views, the public is more or less equally divided between those who believe ‘the nonprofit sector’ is on the right track (34%), the wrong track (30%) or are not sure (37%). This is clearly not a ringing endorsement….
• “The organizations perceived by the largest proportions of all adults to have been involved with responding to Katrina are the American Red Cross (95%), FEMA (83%), the National Guard (79%), the Salvation Army (74%), the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund (67%), the Army Corp of Engineers (65%), and Habitat for Humanity (64%).
• “Among those who are aware that these organizations did respond to Katrina, the nonprofits with the highest ratings are Habitat for Humanity (85% positive), the Humane Society (85%), the Salvation Army (83%), the ASPCA (83%), the National Guard (81%), Catholic Charities (79%) and the American Red Cross (77%).
• “All organizations which were evaluated received positive ratings of 62 percent or more of all adults, with one exception. A large (72%) majority of those who were aware of FEMA’s involvement rate it’s performance negatively.”…