The federal government will match donations from Canadians made before Sept. 28 to help the people of Pakistan recover from massive flooding. More than 33 million people are affected by floods and much of country's agricultural land is under water,
reports the CBC.
As Canadians consider where to direct their donations, they may want to consider international relief and development organizations affiliated with the EFC. Here's some information to consider.
If your church belongs to a larger denomination, you may already have a connection to a group that is already helping in Pakistan. That's worth looking into for sure. Here are some examples we've found.
Many charities are part of larger groupings that work together. You may read in news stories like the CBC one above that the matching program is for the 12 organizations in the Humanitarian Coalition. The reason many denominational groups are also eligible for matching is that they are members of the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, which in tern is a member of the Humanitarian Coalition.
Here are some connections to those larger groupings:
- foodgrainsbank.ca: This grouping of 15 Christian agencies includes many EFC affiliates and often manages appeals where the Canadian government matches donations.
- humanitariancoalition.ca: An interfaith group of 12 international aid agencies based in Canada. Three are EFC affiliates: World Vision, Canadian Foodgrains Bank, Canadian Lutheran World Relief.
- kentronetwork.ca/member-map: Kentro is the new name for the Canadian Christian Relief and Development Association. Its website has a great member map of the world where you can click on a country to see which of its 50+ member organizations are doing work in a particular country.
Another way to research is to enter terms like "Pakistan" at
TheEFC.ca/AffiliateSearch, which is a search engine that tries to survey the websites of our affiliate organizations. It's not working perfectly, but it's still a good place to start. You should find results like these:
If you find a charity that is new to you when searching anyplace online, a good idea is to check its reputation before donating. The Canadian Centre for Christian Charities has an
accreditation program where you can search the names of charities (note that browsing alphabetically can be tricky as groups with "The" as part of their official name are listed under T).
Another good idea to remember is that, while disaster responses are urgent, one of the best ways to contribute is by donating repeatedly over time to long-term development.