After the Earthquake, Before the Cameras Leave: What Venezuela Needs From Philanthropy Right Now
On June 24, 2026, Venezuela was hit by something seismologists call a "doublet" — a magnitude 7.2 earthquake, followed seconds later by a 7.5. The epicenter sat near Caracas and the coastal state of La Guaira. Two weeks later, the numbers are still moving: over 3,600 dead, more than 16,700 injured, tens of thousands still unaccounted for, and upward of 58,000 buildings damaged or destroyed.
Those numbers matter. But they're not the whole story, and if philanthropy responds only to the numbers, we'll miss what's actually needed.
HIP recently convened a donor briefing with humanitarian responders, diaspora leaders, and civil society organizations working the ground in Venezuela right now. What came through, again and again, wasn't just an update on damage. It was a correction to how a lot of us are probably thinking about this crisis.
This earthquake didn't create a crisis. It exposed one.
Before June 24, Venezuela already had 7 million people relying on international humanitarian assistance. Over the past decade, 8 million people — roughly a quarter of the population — left the country, taking much of its medical and technical workforce with them. Humanitarian appeals have gone chronically underfunded for years; this year's plan had received only 18% of requested funding before the earthquake hit.
One responder who had just returned from the ground put it in stark terms: in most countries, the government is the first responder to a disaster. In Venezuela, the government was the last. Compounding this, people trying to check on loved ones or find basic safety information in the earthquake's first hours ran into blocked social media and blocked international news sites — a communications blackout layered on top of a physical one.
So when we talk about "the earthquake response," we're actually talking about a years-long humanitarian and political crisis that a natural disaster just made impossible to ignore. Funders who treat this as a single-event emergency — write a check, move on in a few weeks — will miss both the need and the opportunity.
Civil society didn't respond to this crisis. It was already the infrastructure.
Every single speaker on the call, independently, landed on the same point: the response Venezuelans are living through right now was not built by international responders arriving after the fact. It was built years — in some cases decades — before the earthquake, by local organizations that had already learned how to operate when the state didn't show up.
Within hours of the quakes, community organizations had stood up missing-persons registries, food and medicine distribution, shelter coordination, and psychosocial support — using systems, partnerships, and trust built over the country's broader crisis. As one panelist framed it: this isn't civil society responding to a disaster. Civil society is Venezuela's social infrastructure, filling the space where state capacity should be.
That framing changes what a donation is actually doing. Funding these organizations isn't just paying for today's emergency relief. It's investing in the trust networks and institutional capacity that will still be doing the work long after this earthquake is out of the news cycle, which, multiple speakers pointed out, tends to happen faster than the recovery timeline requires.
There's also a gendered dimension worth naming directly: women are disproportionately carrying this response, organizing shelters, coordinating care networks, documenting needs, while also disproportionately absorbing the crisis's economic and health impacts. Any long-term recovery strategy that doesn't account for that is incomplete.
What's actually needed (and what isn't)
Two weeks in, the response has shifted from rescue to recovery, and the needs have shifted with it. Responders were specific, including about what's no longer the priority:
Not currently a bottleneck: Food distribution has largely stabilized. Additional medical personnel aren't the gap, the people and expertise are there.
What's actually needed:
- Medical supplies and equipment
- Shelter repair and improvement — some organizations are already moving families out of shelters and into repaired homes
- Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure
- Mental health and psychosocial support
- Protection services for children, people with disabilities, and survivors of gender-based violence
- Electricity and connectivity restoration — solar power access is an immediate, practical gap for many communities
- Support for families displaced to other, often poorer, regions of the country
Cost estimates for reconstruction vary widely, from roughly $3–6 billion by some local economists to $37 billion in one disaster-risk assessment. That spread isn't a reason for donor paralysis — it's a reason for coordinated giving instead of everyone chasing the same visible need.
What philanthropy should actually do
One speaker offered the clearest frame for donors: philanthropy's role here is complementary, not primary. It works best when it strengthens organizations that were already embedded in these communities before the earthquake and will still be there long after.
A few concrete takeaways for funders:
Give flexible, not restricted.
This was the single most consistent ask across every speaker. Local organizations need to be able to shift resources as needs change week to week, not wait on approval for a narrowly scoped grant that may no longer match the moment by the time it lands.
Fund the recovery, not just the headline.
Every speaker warned, in some form, that international attention fades within weeks while rebuilding takes years. Haiti came up more than once as the cautionary comparison, a reminder that recovery infrastructure, not just emergency response, is where lasting impact lives.
Trust the local intermediaries.
Transparent, accountable channels for moving funds already exist: U.S.-registered nonprofit partners with established relationships on the ground, and independent partners providing inventory transparency for in-kind shipments. This is not a "wait until the system is perfect" moment. The infrastructure is there.
Don't separate relief from institution-building.
Funding an organization's capacity right now — its staff, its systems, its ability to operate — is not a distraction from emergency response. It's what makes sustained emergency response possible at all.
Support Advocacy Efforts
Venezuela's 2024 anti-NGO law is still in effect, and it continues to create friction for organizations trying to register or operate, a real constraint on how quickly and how safely aid can move, even when the will and the funding are there. Responders were candid that many of the decisions shaping Venezuela's path forward right now aren't made in Caracas, they're made in Washington. For funders thinking about long-term impact, that's worth factoring in alongside direct humanitarian giving: supporting advocacy is part of supporting recovery, not separate from it.
Please check out HIP's recommended and vetted organizations to support here.
A separate resource created collectively during our funder briefing of organizations working on the ground in Venezuela — including how to give, and what each is focused on — is available upon request. You can contact [email protected] for this information. HIP will continue sharing updates as this response moves from recovery into long-term rebuilding.