Harvard To Match Aid For Tsunami

Lending its vast resources to a suffering region, Harvard will match student and employee donations up to $100 a person for the disaster relief effort in nations ravaged by last month’s tsunami, University President Lawrence H. Summers announced yesterday.

Harvard said it would match gifts by any of its roughly 20,000 students and nearly 15,000 paid staff, including contributions made before yesterday’s announcement. With no ceiling on total donations, a vast outpouring by the Harvard community could potentially produce a seven-figure contribution from the University.

Harvard released a list of 26 charities—from the American Red Cross to Doctors Without Borders to Oxfam America—for which it would match donations and established a website yesterday to coordinate the effort.

The program appeared to have little precedent in higher education. As non-profit organizations, Harvard and other universities rarely raise funds directly for other charities.

“It’s certainly unusual,” said Christine Letts, the Hauser lecturer in the practice of philanthropy and nonprofit leadership, “but I would argue it is far more consistent with Harvard’s mission to do something like this.”

The University received hundreds of pledges in the hours after staff and students were informed of the program by e-mail yesterday afternoon, said Mary Power, senior director of community relations.

Employees may electronically divert a portion of their paycheck through the University’s existing mechanism for charitable donations, and students may streamline donations online to the American Red Cross of Massachusetts Bay. Both groups may also send checks by mail at an address posted on the University’s website.

Harvard will match gifts already donated to the relief effort for individuals who produce a receipt of their contribution.

As individuals across the globe continue to commit huge sums to relief organizations working in southern Asia, some charities have said they have more money for the effort than they can use.

Doctors Without Borders said last week it had sufficient funds for its programs in the area and encouraged donors to give to the organization’s general fund for operations elsewhere in the world. The Red Cross has received more than $100 million in pledges for the disaster but has committed just $30 million to the relief effort so far.

“That may end up being problematic because it’s quite clear that the Red Cross can’t use all the money it’s getting right now for the tsunami,” said Letts, who is also associate director of Harvard’s Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations. “People have to make up their minds about that.”

In an interview last night, Summers said the magnitude of the tragedy in southern Asia warranted the University’s unusual response. “It’s a very difficult question, how to respond to global emergencies when there are profound tragedies every day,” Summers said.

After Sept. 11, 2001, Harvard established a $1 million education fund to benefit the children and spouses of victims of the attacks.

“There are events that transcend what happens normally,” Summers said yesterday. “Sept. 11 was such an event. This is such an event. It seems appropriate to support our community by matching funds.”

Nayana N. Mawilmada, a second-year student at the Business School who established a Harvard community fund at the local chapter of the Red Cross nearly two weeks ago, said he was delighted by yesterday’s announcement.

“It came as a surprise to me,” said Mawilmada, a native Sri Lankan, “but a great surprise.”

Several organizations at Harvard have launched efforts to raise funds for the relief effort. The fraternity Sigma Chi is promoting a dinner at Uno’s in the Square tonight where 20 percent of diners’ checks will be donated to the Red Cross. A newly-formed group, the Harvard College Tsunami Relief Effort, has begun soliciting donations.

—Lauren A.E. Schuker contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Zachary M. Seward can be reached at seward@fas.harvard.edu.