International Medical Corps Charitable Efforts For Ukraine

CharityWatch has expressed concern that some charities are getting in on the fundraising opportunity created by the conflict in Ukraine without a clear idea of how they will spend the donations they receive on relief efforts. This is a problem for two primary reasons:

1) Donors who respond to solicitations for donations to provide aid in a humanitarian crisis most often want their donations to be used to ease suffering now, not for some unknown purpose at some future date.

2) Charities that are unclear about how they can help, or that have no experience providing aid in Ukraine or in conflict zones in general, may be siphoning resources away from organizations that are actively providing boots-on-the-ground humanitarian assistance to suffering people right now. 

CharityWatch reached out to several Top-Rated organizations soliciting donations for Ukrainian relief efforts with hard-hitting questions about the amount of donations they have collected so far and how they are using them. We reached out to International Medical Corps. The charity responded on Friday, March 4th, 2022. This is what we found: 

Q: How much has International Medical Corps raised so far?

A. "As of March 4 [2022] we have raised approximately $10 million." 

Q. Does International Medical Corps have a dollar target for the amount of donations it plans to raise to provide aid related to the conflict in Ukraine? If so, will it stop fundraising for this conflict once it has reached this target?

A. "Due to the volatility and fluidity of the situation, and due to the level of needs so far and anticipated in the short and long term, we have not established a dollar amount to raise. Given our established presence in the country and the region, and our extensive plans to scale up activities we already had been conducting inside Ukraine, we will continue to fundraise and are confident that we will program all funds donated."

Q. What aid is your organization already actively providing in the region related to this conflict? 

A. "With a history in Ukraine that reaches back to 1999, International Medical Corps is responding to the war there, actively working from Lviv with local partners to provide medical, metal health and protection services throughout the country, based on needs assessments we are currently conducting with healthcare facilities. We are working with a local partner that is providing mental health support services, online and in person, in the east of the country. And, though we have staff in Kyiv and Mariupol, they currently are sheltering in place and not providing services, as their safety and security is our foremost concern. Once it is safe to do so, they will be working through mobile medical teams to provide care to communities there."

Q. Does International Medical Corps have plans to expand upon the humanitarian aid it is already providing?

A. "Other plans include the following. Quantities depend on needs identified."

"We have set up hubs in Lviv, Ukraine and Rzeszow, Poland, that our experts are using to provide humanitarian services throughout the region."

"Our logistics experts are procuring medicines, supplies and equipment, based on requests we are receiving from hospitals and primary-care centers within Ukraine; they have secured routes to get these critically needed items to these hubs; and they are moving them across the border."

"Our staff in Poland is working with local authorities and partners to assess refugee needs there; we also have staff in Romania, and are assessing needs there, as well as in Moldova. We are actively pursuing registration in Poland and Romania, and are ready now to work with local partners [to] help meet the needs of refugee populations in all three countries."

"We are the only NGO in the world classified by the World Health Organization as a Type 1 EMT, Fixed and Mobile. If requested by national governments along the Ukrainian border, we are ready to deploy our Emergency Medical Team to provide emergency medical care and other services to refugees."

Q. If at some future date International Medical Corps has completed its operations related to providing aid in this conflict and still has funds left over that people donated specifically for this purpose, what is your organization's policy or plans for how such funds will be used?

A. "We will spend funds on immediate and long-term needs of the people affected in the region. Programs will include training of local healthcare workers, capacity strengthening of local healthcare systems, etc."

Q. Can you provide any information about how much money International Medical Corps has spent so far providing aid related to this conflict?

A. "Given that we are just over [a] week into our response [as of March 4, 2022], it is not possible to provide an amount currently."

Why Is International Medical Corps Top-Rated by CharityWatch?

CharityWatch analyzed the audited financial statements and IRS tax Form 990 for International Medical Corps. As part of this process, we segregated the cash donations and expenses the charity received and spent from the non-cash (in-kind) donations of goods and services (such as donated supplies and food commodities) it received and distributed so that we can give donors a clearer picture of how efficiently it used its cash donations. To compute the fundraising efficiency with which the charity raised public donations, we excluded any grants or other revenue it received from federal, state, or local governments in the U.S. 

Rating: A

Program %: 88%

Cost to Raise Each $100 of Cash Support: $4

CharityWatch has been rating International Medical Corps for over a decade and it has consistently received financial efficiency ratings from CharityWatch that fall into the A-range or above on our "A+ to F" rating scale. 

Transparency: International Medical Corps meets CharityWatch's benchmarks for Transparency. It posts a copy of its most current audited financial statements on its website, and has responded to our questions about its financial reporting (if any) necessary for CharityWatch to complete a meaningful analysis. 

Governance: CharityWatch reviewed the IRS Form 990 for International Medical Corps to see if it reports having certain policies in place (Conflict of Interest, Whistleblower, Document Retention) and a sufficiently independent board of directors. We also reviewed the consolidated audited financial statements of Direct Relief to determine if any governance issues were identified by the charity's auditors that were required to be reported under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). Direct Relief meets CharityWatch's governance benchmarks.

 See CharityWatch's complete profile of International Medical Corps. 

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