Islamic Relief

Britain's biggest Islamic charity says an audit of its activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories has found no evidence to support accusations it has funded terrorism. Islamic Relief Worldwide denied claims made first by Israel and later the United Arab Emirates and hired leading auditors to review its West Bank work.

The charity works with international organizations and governments, such as UNICEF and the World Food Programme.

Israel has not responded so far.

Islamic Relief Worldwide works in more than 40 countries.

Take a look at Forbes' 13th annual list of the 200 Largest U.S. Charities. They aren’t even 2/100th of 1 precent of the country’s 1.2 million tax-exempt organizations. Yet in their most recent fiscal year the Forbes Charity 200 collectively received $41 billion in gifts — one-seventh of all charitable contributions.

The rankings are based on the amount of private gifts (as opposed to government grants, fee for service or investment revenue) received in the latest fiscal period.

While the popular uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa have posed immediate challenges for charities, many nonprofit officials say they are hopeful that philanthropy will soon have new opportunities in the region. The starkest example of a new climate may be in Tunisia, where the mid-January ouster of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, the country’s authoritarian president, has meant that nonprofits once repressed by the government are now advising the political transition.

Ten days after the devastating earthquake and tsunamis in Japan, American donors have contributed more than $136-million for relief efforts, according to a Chronicle tally. Nearly two-thirds of the total has been raised by one organization, the American Red Cross.

The rate of donations is slower than after last year’s earthquake in Haiti and after 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. Nine days after the disaster in Haiti, donors had contributed more than $355-million, and nine days after Katrina they had given more than $740-million.

American charities say they haven’t raised nearly what they need to help Pakistan’s flood victims.

Aid workers report that they are being forced to decide which assistance programs are most urgent, scale back plans to serve more people, and close clinics ahead of schedule because they lack sufficient cash.