I attended a Pakistani American community meeting this evening (10/09/05) where representatives of different relief organizations and the Consul General spoke. There was a lively discussion about how to contribute, what to contribute and to whom. There was a lot of emotion and since it was Ramadan, the traditional Islamic month of charity, people were quite open to different fund raising ideas. The meeting ended with about $150,000 pledged by the community in support of the earthquake relief effort including a dramatic pledge of $100,000 to start off the fundraising by a leading businessman. 

The general consensus among all including veterans of relief to Bam earthquake in Iran and Katrina was that that money is much more important than in-kind donations. It takes about $3200 to ship a container to Pakistan and quite often you can buy stuff much cheaper in the local market. The issue with sending money of course is the worry that it might not reach the desired people. There was also agreement that a website dedicated to emergency relief that can legally take tax exempt donations would be set up along with a 800 number that can then be used for fundraising through both ethnic and mainstream media.