Smaller is better -- Private and individual philanthropy after the 3/11 disaster Daniel P. Aldrich and Mika Shimizu

The response by government agencies and large-scale organizations to the March 11 disaster in the Tohoku region of Japan has been an exercise in ineffectiveness. Institutional ham-handedness continues to prevail. The national Diet remains gridlocked on bills that could benefit victims, while, according to a Japanese newspaper, only 30 percent of the $2.2 billion (169.56 billion yen) donated to the Red Cross has actually made it to potential recipients by mid-July. Highlighting the government disarray was the resignation on July 5 of Ryu Matsumoto as minister in charge of reconstruction, barely a week after stepping into the job. So crassly uncharitable were some of the new minister's remarks -- brusquely withholding assistance from disaster areas that failed to come up with detailed plans and threatening reporters who reported on the contentiousness of his encounters in the disaster region -- that he chose to resign.

Bigger has definitely not been better in the disaster region. Massive institutions such as the central government and Red Cross have moved at a glacial pace, even during the actual natural disasters, demonstrating "failures of imagination" in their drives to follow established protocols. By contrast, some of the most imaginative and effective responses to the 3/11 disaster have come from agile entrepreneurial volunteer activities in the private and nonprofit sectors in Japan.

Within weeks of the earthquake, for example, commercial helicopter pilots across Japan recognized that government-ordered deliveries of food, water, medicines and supplies would be delayed due to extensive damage to roads and bridges. The private Helicopter Conference of Japan (HCJ) collected donations to cover its fuel costs and began using helicopters based in Miyagi to distribute supplies to shelters in the area. On their own, they delivered much-needed food and water to individuals who had waited for more than a month for regular supplies and had to scavenge for their survival. The pilots also identified other communities with severe water shortages, some of them having to boil and filter pool water for drinking. By June, the HCJ had completed over 300 missions, delivering more than 40 tons of supplies.

Similarly, Rabbi Binyamin Edery of Tokyo quickly recognized that survivors waiting in cold, overcrowded, temporary shelters after the disaster needed a way to reconnect to the rhythms of daily life. Rather than waiting for an invitation, Edery cornered a local "yakiimo" (baked sweet potato) truck and asked the surprised driver to head from Tokyo to shelters in Sendai. Once he was convinced that Edery was serious, the driver agreed. After a 12-hour drive, he parked his truck and activated the loudspeakers announcing his product. Hundreds of people lined up to consume more than 900 pounds of free sweet potatoes. Many cried as they received their portions, explaining that they finally felt some normalcy again. As the weather changed, Edery returned, this time with thousands of ice cream containers for children and hundreds of pounds of clothing for all.

To ensure the sustainability of this kind of innovative philanthropy requires new mechanisms, which the private sector and civil society are now developing. For example, Amazon.co.jp has initiated a project to match the needs of those living in evacuation shelters with contributors across the country. Individual shelters send wish lists -- such as products and foods available at Amazon -- and contributors can buy them through the website to be delivered directly to the shelters. A nongovernmental organization called Volunteer Platform launched a similar two-way communication system, linking the needs of families and individuals in devastated areas with individuals who hope to help out.

Tono city in Iwate Prefecture has undertaken its own collective effort centered on civil society through its Tono Magokoro ("real hearts") Network. Located an hour from the devastated areas in Tohoku, the network serves as a focal point for recruiting volunteers and collecting commodities and foods nationwide to deliver those to the devastated areas. The project aims to create a sustainable community platform where local people work together to preserve their customs, lifestyles, and histories.

These innovative approaches to disaster assistance should be shared and applied throughout Japan and beyond. The public sector -- known for its tendency to be inflexible and slow-moving -- should partner with the private sector and civil society to support and mobilize social capital to build resilience in disaster-affected communities. Through creative and sustainable mechanisms, these social entrepreneurs help local communities to maintain cohesion and coordinate self-help initiatives in times of great upheaval.

Daniel P. Aldrich, associate professor of political science at Purdue, is the author of "Site Fights"
(Cornell University Press 2010) and "Building Resilience" (forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press). He is currently a visiting researcher at the East-West Center and a member of the Mansfield U.S.-Japan Network for the Future, and will be an AAAS Fellow in the fall of 2011 at USAID. Mika Shimizu is a visiting scholar at the East-West Center and lecturer at Sophia University who serves as a co-director of Global Policy Initiative (GPI).

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Check out my book SITE FIGHTS at
http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100
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Dr. Daniel P. Aldrich
Associate Professor, Political Science, Purdue University http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~daldrich/