Helping 9/11's Survivors

A local charity's intelligent response to trauma

THE SURVIVORS' Fund, the only charity established after Sept. 11, 2001, specifically in response to the attack on the Pentagon, was far from the largest or best-known relief effort aimed at victims and their loved ones. Measured by efficacy, however, it may have been unsurpassed.

The fund, which collected $25 million largely in response to full-page ads placed on its behalf by The Post, did no active fundraising. Unlike some other philanthropic projects, it did not lavish cash on individuals dislocated and traumatized by the terrorist attack. Quite intentionally, it did not even dispense much money in the months immediately after a hijacked airliner crashed into the Pentagon.

Instead, the Survivors' Fund husbanded its funds and set about aiding its clients -- the victims, direct and indirect, of the Sept. 11 carnage -- using the patient, flexible and individually tailored techniques of social work. It paid bills, helped with education, arranged for mental health consultations, ran interference with doctors, pointed the way toward vocational training and helped assess family finances.

The fund, which closes its doors this week after more than seven years, took an expansive, inclusive view of what might help. In addition to surviving relatives and those injured in the attack, others who suffered emotional damage were also eligible for assistance. Virtually any service or resource was considered if it seemed likely to ease the survivors' burdens, be it help with the rent, summer camp for children, massages to cope with stress, even piano lessons. And unlike its cash-dispensing cousins, the Survivors' Fund planned its project for the long haul, on the assumption that many of those who suffered would not come forward, or even start to come to grips with their losses and pain, until two, three or four years had passed.

The fund was entrusted to the Community Foundation for the National Capital Region, which modeled its program after one adopted to aid those affected by the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. The foundation received some 12,000 donations, ranging from $1.52 from three Michigan schoolgirls who pooled their allowances to large gifts from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Embassy of Qatar, the Coca-Cola Foundation, Turner Construction, and the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation (endowed by the family that controls this newspaper), among others. It enlisted Northern Virginia Family Service, a nongovernmental organization specializing in social work, to carry out its case management approach to helping survivors.

Not all the fund's clients were satisfied with that strategy; some were downright frustrated at the pace, equity or quality of assistance. Inevitably, some case managers were better than others at evaluating needs and delivering results. And even after six or seven years, plenty of those who received help from the fund continued to rate their quality of life as relatively low. Over time, though, a large majority of them said they were better able to cope with the hardships they had endured, and most credited the Survivors' Fund with improving their lives. That's good and worthy work.