After wildfires ravaged Maui, taking lives, displacing thousands of residents and leaving Lahaina in ruins, people across the globe heeded the call for help and donated both essential goods and hundreds of millions of dollars to charitable organizations, fundraisers and personal GoFundMe campaigns. 

Four of Hawai‘i’s longstanding nonprofit organizations—the Hawai‘i Community Foundation, Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, Maui United Way and The Salvation Army—took the lead, collecting record sums of money to assist the people of Maui. Donations are still being received today.  

Yet, with Lahaina residents, business owners and the entire Valley Isle community still reeling from the Aug. 8 fires, the persistent questions many are asking are: Where are the Maui donations going? Is it going into the pockets of those impacted, or will it be? And who’s deciding how to distribute the money, and with what criteria? 

Many in the community are depending on those contributions to help rebuild, and they’ll face plenty of challenges along the way. We spoke to the four nonprofits spearheading Maui relief to learn how donations have been or will be used. Here’s what we learned. 

The biggest fundraiser, the Maui Strong Fund, has collected more than $120 million in donations designated for Maui fire relief. It’s the largest fundraiser in the Hawai‘i Community Foundation’s 87-year-old history.

Now with the herculean task of allocating and distributing such a massive sum, the nonprofit’s leaders have mobilized their existing operation to move quickly, collaboratively and responsibly. “Basically, you pop up a $120 million global company when you do this,” says Micah Kāne, president and CEO of the Hawai‘i Community Foundation, which launched the fundraiser the day after the fires broke out. “Your IT platform changes, the way you execute on the ground changes, and so we’re basically operating two organizations right now with the same people.”

The foundation awards more than $80 million in grants every year and is accustomed to doling out large sums. It also has been involved in past disasters, such as the 2018 Kaua‘i floods and Kīlauea eruption. Five years ago, HCF created a disaster response plan for all Islands so it would be prepared for future crises.

Still, determining how to distribute the money after the overwhelming devastation the Maui fires caused has been an enormous undertaking involving HCF’s board, community leaders and many others. “The biggest challenge is you realize that it’s not enough money,” Kāne says. “So, you’re always going to be making trade-offs. And the more intel you can have, the better decisions you can make. The better organizations and stakeholders are collaborating, the better decisions you can make.”

As of late September, HCF had distributed more than $24 million to 115 organizations as part of Maui Strong donations.

“When I did call the mayor that evening [on Aug. 8], I told him we would have resources ready to commit to organizations on the ground by the end of day tomorrow,” Kāne says. “By 10 a.m. the following morning, we had the first million dollars in by some very committed organizations and individuals that are trusted partners of ours. Within four or five days, $4 million or $5 million was already in, and we were deploying those dollars to organizations on the ground.”

In the first weeks after the fires, with needs so urgent, HCF awarded funds as quickly as possible to organizations that it already had trusted relationships with. This included $3.5 million to Maui Economic Opportunity for securing transitional housing, $300,000 to Imua Family Services to help children and families with mental health services and $5 million to Maui United Way for direct financial assistance to adults who resided in the fire-affected zone.

“[Maui United Way] has intake procedures that can gauge need, and we’re strong believers of cash assistance, especially in the early days of the disaster,” Kāne says. “That’s why we flushed the system with funds that went to organizations like Maui United Way and Maui Economic Opportunity and Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement. They know how to do this kind of work. We’re better intermediaries than trying to do that ourselves.”

Now, Kāne says, they’re transitioning to phase three, the recovery and stabilization phase, which will be followed by the final “rebuilding resiliency” phase.

He says the third phase will take years and require the use of about 70% to 85% of the funds; the balance will be saved for the final phase. “It’s going to be trying to bring a comfortable interim new normal for families, and you’re going to hear that term I think a lot,” he says. In this “interim new normal,” people should expect a certain level of quality of life “and that’s what we’re striving to deliver, as a hui of organizations, both from government to philanthropy to nonprofit.”

In early October, HCF, the County of Maui and American Red Cross announced that the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement would administer a new Host Housing Support Program, which offers monthly stipends up to $1,500 for up to six months to those who shelter people displaced by the Maui fires. Officials say the program, which has a $4 million budget of which HCF committed $250,000 toward, targets the estimated 25% of displaced individuals who are staying with friends and family members.

DONATE: MAUI STRONG FUND

After the fire consumed Lahaina, the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement launched its Kāko‘o Maui Fund, a donation matching campaign to aid communities impacted by the wildfires. Kūhiō Lewis, president and CEO of CNHA, also told his staff when the fundraising began that he wanted a new program launched to help Maui by Sept. 15.

As of late September, the Kāko‘o Maui Fund had raised more than $8 million and awarded nearly $900,000 in grants. Donations are geared toward Maui-based relief efforts, with a focus on Native Hawaiian organizations, small businesses, families and cultural groups.

When it came to releasing funds, Lewis took charge quickly. “I basically gave to organizations that I identified that were on the ground and were moving and responding quickly,” he says. “We wanted to get them some aid, so we made a bunch of sweeping awards in the beginning, but now it’s going through a committee.”

The committee, made up of CNHA employees, is assessing key criteria from organizations requesting assistance. This includes verifying their nonprofit status and making sure they have the capacity and ability to deliver the services they’re proposing.

On Aug. 19, CNHA opened a Maui relief storage facility. In early September, it started its Kāko‘o Maui Resource Hub at Maui Mall. (It also manages the Maui County storage and distribution center in Kahului.) And on Sept. 15, the nonprofit launched its Maui Workforce Development Program.

“While our focus is on Native Hawaiians, we are helping everyone,” Lewis says. The group’s new efforts are being funded by Kāko‘o Maui, but costs are low. He estimates spending about $50,000, for example, to run the resource center.

To determine the allocation of remaining funds, CNHA has divided the Kāko‘o Maui Fund into four categories, with 25% going to individuals; 25% to nonprofits that support individuals; 25% to support businesses; and 25% for direct services, such as the resource center and future initiatives.

CNHA is now transitioning to the third phase of its disaster relief plan, which aims for long-term stability through financial assistance. The organization intends to give directly to individuals but is waiting for FEMA’s application to close to minimize confusion and duplication of efforts.

The final phase of the plan targets the rebuilding of Lahaina—and for CNHA, that means filling in gaps, Lewis says. “We’re kind of a small fund compared to others. I mean it sounds like a lot, but in the greater scheme of what’s necessary, we might play a smaller role. This is going to be a multiyear effort that’s going to take a lot of resources to help fill voids where the federal government falls short, so please keep giving if you can.”

DONATE: KĀKO‘O MAUI FUND

Once the severity of the fires was known, Maui United Way quickly started collecting funds online to support Maui relief efforts. Soon, donations were pouring in from all over the world. As of late September, the nonprofit had raised more than $15 million for its Maui Fire Disaster Relief.

People are donating through electronic fund transfers and by sending checks in the mail, and “we’ve even received stock donations through our partners, as well as online, and then you know, fundraisers that are taking place all over the country and beyond,” says Nicholas Winfrey, president and CEO of Maui United Way.

Maui United Way also launched an emergency financial assistance program to provide direct financial assistance to those in the impacted areas of Kula and Lahaina. The program is now closed, but 7,130 individuals were approved to receive a $1,000 direct payment (up to five adults per household).

Maui United Way also quickly distributed grants of up to $10,000 to 20 nonprofit partners in the first phase of its funding. The phase two grantees were awarded funds in mid-October, with a stipulation that they must utilize all of the funds by the end of January 2024.

Maui United Way focused this phase on funding organizations that assist children and young adults and provide mental health services, stable housing, job training, education and employment assistance. “We’re designed to do this,” Winfrey says. “This is what we do—provide grants—so we have operating procedures in place to vet nonprofits very thoroughly. That process went to our boards, then it’s our partnership committee that is empowered to approve or deny grants, based on some really specific curriculum and quality assurance and quality control measures.”

Winfrey expects Maui United Way’s relief efforts to last years and have an “infinite amount of phases.” It’s important to remain fluid and continue to pivot, he says, to ensure that no one is falling through the cracks and all people affected are receiving support.

“It’s a long, long, long road to recovery, and resources that we can get into our closed loop system are going to be greatly needed, not just by us, but really all the nonprofits in our community that were doing this work prior, and are going to continue in the future.”

DONATE: MAUI FIRE DISASTER RELIEF

On Aug. 8, The Salvation Army, which had been operating on Maui since 1985, lost its Lahaina facilities in the fires, including its building, church, store and residential quarters. Fortunately, staff members evacuated safely, quickly regrouped and began working out of the nonprofit’s Kahului location that night, cooking and serving meals to displaced survivors.

This wasn’t a case of an outside entity coming to aid. It was a group that was already positioned within the community, with a crisis that, “by God’s grace, we were able to respond to,” says Major Troy Trimmer, divisional commander of The Salvation Army, Hawaiian and Pacific Islands Division.

All funds donated to The Salvation Army through its website, social media or by phone go into The Salvation Army’s Emergency Disaster Service Response Fund.

The day after the fires, Trimmer says he immediately received $50,000 from his territory’s higher headquarters to start meeting the needs of the Maui community. Total donations for Maui, as of late September, had reached $7.8 million. “One hundred percent will be used directly in Maui fire response,” Trimmer says.

The difference between The Salvation Army and other Maui relief funds is that The Salvation Army doesn’t typically disperse funds to other agencies. Rather, it utilizes funds to manage efforts itself.

It’s difficult to quantify how many people The Salvation Army has helped on Maui, Trimmer says, but he estimates it’s in the thousands based on the number of services the organization has provided.

So far, the local Salvation Army team has prepared and served 80,000 meals and helped coordinate more than 600,000 additional meals on the island. The organization also has provided emotional and spiritual care to more than 2,100 people on Maui since the fires.

Of the total donations it’s raised for Maui relief, The Salvation Army has spent about $1 million in the first phase of its response. It recently authorized another $1.5 million for its next recovery phase. “That assistance is going toward recovery efforts like transportation, gas, groceries, clothing, general needs for the Maui wildfire survivors, including some of those who are located on other Islands,” Trimmer says. “One of the things that we’re finding is people who have been displaced have found themselves on neighboring islands.”

About 900 families have already been interviewed by the organization’s case management team. Once their needs have been assessed, The Salvation Army will reach out to offer assistance, Trimmer says.

DONATE: MAUI FIRE RELIEF