http://blog.myphilanthropedia.org/2010/03/11/haiti-expert-recommends-high-impact-nonprofits-to-support/

There are approx­i­mately 900 non­prof­its listed under the cat­e­gory of ‘Haiti’ in Guidestar alone.  Dur­ing the after­math of Haiti’s earth­quake, many donors have been ask­ing the ques­tion: which non­prof­its should I sup­port? At Phil­an­thro­pe­dia, we believe that sup­port­ing high-impact non­prof­its is the most effec­tive way to make a dif­fer­ence with your dona­tion. Our solu­tion to iden­ti­fy­ing high-impact non­prof­its is to rely on the rec­om­men­da­tions of experts who know the sec­tor the best. Given the time con­straints and unique tran­si­tory nature of nat­ural dis­as­ters, we weren’t able to run our full method­ol­ogy for Haiti relief as a social cause. How­ever, we believe this inter­view with one Haiti expert is a good demon­stra­tion of the value that experts can bring in help­ing to iden­tify high-impact non­prof­its for donors to support.

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The 7.0-magnitude earth­quake that hit Haiti on Jan­u­ary 12, 2010 killed an esti­mated 230,000 peo­ple, which is equiv­a­lent to the metro pop­u­la­tion of the Greater Port­land Area (Fox News Feb­ru­ary 10, 2010; http://www.portlandmaine.gov/). The out­pour­ing of gen­eros­ity to sup­port the imme­di­ate dis­as­ter relief efforts has been tremen­dous. Yet, with the col­lapse of 250,000 houses and 30,000 com­mer­cial build­ings, and an esti­mated 1.5 mil­lion peo­ple home­less (BBC Jan­u­ary 22, 2010), sup­port­ing high-impact non­prof­its focused on long-term devel­op­ment in addi­tion to imme­di­ate relief orga­ni­za­tions is impor­tant for the recon­struc­tion of Haiti.

Haiti has suf­fered from pre­vi­ous nat­ural dis­as­ters (3,000 peo­ple were killed in floods fol­low­ing the 2004 Hur­ri­cane Jeanne and 800 peo­ple were killed in land­slides dur­ing the 2008 hur­ri­cane sea­son). Haiti is, by a sig­nif­i­cant mar­gin, the poor­est coun­try in the West­ern Hemi­sphere, with four out of five peo­ple liv­ing in poverty (New York Times Jan­u­ary 25, 2010). Mark Schnei­der, who led the Caribbean divi­sion of the U.S. Agency for Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment dur­ing the Clin­ton Admin­is­tra­tion, said that efforts to rede­velop Haiti’s long-ravaged econ­omy may have been set back by “decades” (CNN Jan­u­ary 19, 2010).

To iden­tify high-impact non­prof­its in Haiti, we inter­viewed Moira (Feeney) Duver­nay, an expert who has had 12 years of work expe­ri­ence in Haiti and who was the lead attor­ney in two cases against for­mer Hait­ian mil­i­tary offi­cials. Through her rec­om­men­da­tions, we cre­ated a Haiti expert fund, so donors can eas­ily sup­port a cohort of high-impact non­prof­its each tack­ling a dif­fer­ent social prob­lem. We believe that this is a good demon­stra­tion of the value that expert opin­ions can bring to help iden­tify high-impact non­prof­its for donors to sup­port. Click here to donate to the Haiti Fund!

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Moira (Feeney) Duvernay

Attor­ney At Law, Law Offices of Ami­tai Schwartz. 2008 – present.
Staff Attor­ney with the Cen­ter for Jus­tice and Account­abil­ity (CJA) 2006–2008
12 years of rel­e­vant work experience

Exper­tise:
Moira has been involved in human rights work related to Haiti since 1998. She was the Cen­ter for Jus­tice and Accountability’s lead attor­ney in the case against for­mer Hait­ian death squad leader Toto Con­stant. She also lit­i­gated CJA’s other suc­cess­ful Haiti case, Jean v. Dore­lien, in which CJA’s clients recov­ered just under $1 mil­lion from for­mer Hait­ian colonel Carl Dore­lien who in 1997 had won  $3.2 mil­lion in the Florida state lot­tery. Both Con­stant and Dore­lien were found liable for human rights abuses com­mit­ted dur­ing the 1991–1994 mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship in Haiti.

Cur­rently, Moira is on the board of Sus­tain­able Orga­ni­za­tion Inte­grated Liveli­hood (SOIL) which works to pro­tect soil resources, empower com­mu­ni­ties, and trans­form wastes into resources in North­ern Haiti.  SOIL ‘s projects include build­ing eco and com­mu­nity friendly com­post­ing toi­let facil­i­ties that are hav­ing a huge pos­i­tive impact on some of Haiti’s most press­ing pub­lic health issues . She is also involved in the US-based Haiti sol­i­dar­ity com­mu­nity work­ing to raise aware­ness of human rights issues in the US and Haiti. Moira is flu­ent in French, Cre­ole, and Spanish.

Back­ground:
Moira first got involved in Haiti when she vol­un­teered as an Eng­lish and Span­ish teacher in Haiti at the Lou­ver­ture Cleary School, admin­is­tered by the Hait­ian Project, a US-based non-profit.  She taught school for one year in Haiti, but it was really her stu­dents who taught her the most, includ­ing how to speak Hait­ian Cre­ole.  She came back to the United States and worked for the inter­na­tional human rights orga­ni­za­tion Global Exchange based in San Fran­cisco. She served as the coor­di­na­tor of their Haiti pro­gram, orga­niz­ing elec­tion obser­va­tion del­e­ga­tions.  She also led and orga­nized edu­ca­tional travel focused on issues of global jus­tice to Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Chi­a­pas, Mexico.

Edu­ca­tion:
After her work with Global Exchange, Moira pur­sued her law degree at UC Hast­ings Col­lege of the Law. Dur­ing her time in law school, she helped cre­ate a sis­ter school rela­tion­ship with the law school in Jere­mie, Haiti. The Hast­ings to Haiti Part­ner­ship is now a thriv­ing pro­gram that allows edu­ca­tional exchange between Amer­i­can and Hait­ian law stu­dents and pro­fes­sors. In addi­tion to her J.D. from Hast­ings, Moira has a B.A. in inter­na­tional rela­tions from Brown University.

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Non­profit Recommendations:

Insti­tute for Jus­tice & Democ­racy in Haiti (IJDH)

Moira rec­om­mends IJDH because of its focus on the long term legal and human rights impli­ca­tions of the earthquake.

Insti­tute for Jus­tice & Democ­racy in Haiti fights for the human rights of Haiti’s poor, in court, on the streets, and wher­ever deci­sions about Haitians’ rights are made. This orga­ni­za­tion rep­re­sents the unjustly impris­oned and vic­tims of polit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion, coor­di­nates grass­roots advo­cacy in Haiti and in the US, trains human rights advo­cates in Haiti, and dis­sem­i­nates human rights infor­ma­tion world­wide. Read more at IJDH at http://ijdh.org/about/goals.

Area of Focus: Human Rights
Loca­tion: Joseph, OR / Port au Prince, Haiti
Web­site: http://ijdh.org/
Phone: 541– 432– 0597
Email: info@ijdh.org

Part­ners in Health (PIH)

Moira rec­om­mends Part­ners in Health because they have a strong infra­struc­ture set up in Haiti for both the short and long term.

Zanmi Las­ante (“Part­ners In Health” in Hait­ian Kreyol) is PIH’s flag­ship project – the old­est, largest, most ambi­tious, and most repli­cated. Today, ZL has oper­a­tions in nine sites across Haiti’s Cen­tral Plateau and beyond. It ranks as one of the largest non­govern­men­tal health care providers in Haiti – and is the only provider of com­pre­hen­sive pri­mary care (regard­less of one’s abil­ity to pay) for more than half a mil­lion impov­er­ished peo­ple liv­ing in the moun­tain­ous Cen­tral Plateau. Read more about PIH at http://pih.org/where/Haiti/Haiti.html.

Area of Focus: Health
Loca­tion: Boston, MA
Web­site: http://pih.org
Phone: 617– 432– 5256
Email: haiti@pih.org

Sus­tain­able Organic Inte­grated Liveli­hood (SOIL)

Moira is on the board of SOIL and believes their method of reusing waste pro­motes sus­tain­abil­ity and com­bats san­i­tary prob­lems. They part­ner with groups like Part­ners in Health so they can respond quickly to sit­u­a­tions on the ground in Haiti. For exam­ple, they were able to get to Port-au-Prince from the North faster than most inter­na­tional groups after the 2010 earthquake.

SOIL cre­ates sus­tain­able toi­lets that allow one to reuse waste which can be used as soil for grow­ing. This process helps pro­tect soil resources, empower com­mu­ni­ties, and trans­forms waste into a resource in Haiti. Read more about SOIL at http://www.oursoil.org/what.

Area of Focus: San­i­ta­tion
Loca­tion: Sher­burne, NY
Web­site: www.oursoil.org
Phone: 503–807-3923
Email:sash@oursoil.org

Kon­bit Pou Aviti/KONPAY (Work­ing Together for Haiti)

Moira believes that KONPAY has a strong infra­struc­ture on the ground in Haiti. They are doing a great job at pro­vid­ing emer­gency relief in Jacmel, an area hit hard by the earth­quake but cut off from most relief efforts that are focused on Port au Prince. KONPAY is direct­ing 100% of earth­quake dona­tions to get­ting deliv­er­ies of med­ical sup­plies and food to the Jacmel region where an esti­mated 100,000 are cur­rently homeless.

KONPAY focuses on Hait­ian solu­tions to envi­ron­men­tal, social, and eco­nomic prob­lems, and pro­vides train­ing and fund­ing to grass­roots and community-based projects. They sup­port Haitian-led efforts to refor­est Haiti and pro­tect the environment.

Area of Focus: Envi­ron­ment and Com­mu­nity Devel­op­ment
Loca­tion: Glouces­ter, MA
Web­site: http://www.konpay.org
Phone: 978–335-2758
Email: melinda@konpay.org

Hait­ian Edu­ca­tion Lead­er­ship Pro­gram (H.E.L.P.)

Moira rec­om­mends Hait­ian Edu­ca­tion Lead­er­ship Pro­gram because they pro­vide schol­ar­ships to low-income stu­dents with high aca­d­e­mic poten­tial and achieve­ment for higher edu­ca­tion. She believes now more than ever it will be impor­tant to sup­port this kind of work because these stu­dents are Haiti’s future. She believes that pro­vid­ing these stu­dents (who do not have the resources) with the oppor­tu­nity to pur­sue higher edu­ca­tion is the key to the long term invest­ment in Haiti.

With H.E.L.P. schol­ar­ships, top Hait­ian stu­dents can escape des­per­ate poverty to become doc­tors and nurses, accoun­tants, engi­neers, teach­ers, and com­puter pro­gram­mers. H.E.L.P. is spon­sor­ing 110 stu­dents for the 2009/2010 aca­d­e­mic year, all of whom thank­fully sur­vived the earth­quake. H.E.L.P. grad­u­ates pro­vide eco­nomic secu­rity for their fam­i­lies and the much needed exper­tise for the devel­op­ment of their country.

Area of Focus: Edu­ca­tion
Loca­tion: New York, NY
Web­site: http://www.haitianeducation.org/
Phone: 646– 485‑8667
Email: info@haitianeducation.org

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For more infor­ma­tion about Haiti and a list of orga­ni­za­tions work­ing in Haiti visit: http://www.haitispecialenvoy.org/

Click here to donate to the Haiti Fund!