The Tsunami Learning Project: Lessons for Grantmakers in Natural Disaster Response

The world’s response to Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami of December 2004 was unprecedented, and donations from all public and private sources topped US$13.4 billion. Yet even for the most experienced of grantmakers, the enormous scope of this catastrophe posed an array of decision-making challenges. With the Tsunami Learning Project, Grantmakers Without Borders sought to find answers to these decision-making challenges. This document offers new tools for grantmakers when responding to natural disasters, exploring the role of both large and small grants in disaster response. It also explores what a social justice or rights-based approach in disaster response grantmaking might look like.