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Sept. 11 Fund Ends Mission Of Assistance

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The Washington Post

Published: May 4, 2008

WASHINGTON - Nearly seven years after a hijacked airplane crashed into the Pentagon, the largest charity established to help Washington area victims and their families is closing, becoming the last major Sept. 11-related charity to shut down.

The Survivors' Fund raised $25 million from more than 12,000 area residents and businesses in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks and spent it treating the grieving, the distressed and the traumatized.

The charity's closure brings an unofficial end to the nation's philanthropic response to the attacks, in which millions of people donated $2.7 billion - at the time an unprecedented sum of private dollars - to hundreds of charities.

Although some leading charities cut large checks to the families of victims, the Survivors' Fund followed a unique approach to giving, establishing a long-term personal trust of sorts for the victims, their families and first responders.

Employing a model similar to the one used after the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, the Survivors' Fund hired professional case managers to work with families one-on-one to help them move beyond their grief, heal their bodies and return to work.

That meant paying household bills for families who fell behind, and guiding survivors to medical care and mental health counseling. If a family's primary breadwinner had been lost, the charity helped other family members return to school and find jobs.

The most money - 58 percent - went toward helping families pay bills.

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