CARE USA shifts into fundraising overdrive when disaster strikes, but its day-to-day development plan keeps it at the forefront of humanitarian-aid organizations.

By Margaret Battistelli Gardner

CARE’s success in riding out the Sept. 11 fallout was due in large part, Neuman and Hicks agree, to being sensitive to the timbre of the American public. For two to three weeks after the attacks, CARE very quietly stopped fundraising, although it communicated with its donors and constituents.

“We never proclaimed that we had stopped fundraising, but our donors received letters from us where we expressed sympathy for what was happening in New York to the victims and their families. The letters didn’t ask for any money. We just thought there was a period of time when we needed to respect what was going on in New York and not be insensitive to that environment,” Hicks says.