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"I get very nervous when we start talking about the worthy poor," Butler says. "In the national debate, the poor got smeared with the idea that these poor were driving Cadillacs while they were on welfare. … The thing to do is respond (to their plight) as Christ would respond, with justice and mercy."

As Americans show a passion for disaster relief, funds are increasingly earmarked for those efforts. Church World Service, an ecumenical relief agency based in New York, saw only about 20 percent of its budget go for disaster relief prior to fiscal year 2004-05. The rest would get divided among such projects as international development, advocacy, education and refugee resettlement.

However, last year tsunami relief donations pushed the CWS disaster budget to 35 percent of the $84 million total last year, according to Deputy Director of Programs Rick Augsburger. Even so, of the funds donated for tsunami relief, only 30 percent went for long-term recovery. The rest was for the initial emergency only.

More than half of donors are motivated by faith, according to two recent Center on Philanthropy surveys. Yet principles of religious faith aren't always manifest in charitable decisions, according to former Harvard Divinity School dean and International Rescue Committee President George Rupp.

"Donors who are oriented to meeting human needs should be most generous to where the needs are greatest," Rupp says. "I think that is not the case when overwhelmingly more is given to the victims of natural disasters than to the victims of protracted conflicts."

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The Chronicle of Philanthropy tracks charitable giving, and it has many stories on recent Katrina-related donations.

The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University offers several studies on charitable giving.

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September (Web-only) 2005, Vol. 49