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Working as an Ally to Underserved Communities 109

cated human service organizations could have equal access to 9/11
Roundtable funds on behalf of their clients, paperwork systems to track
decision making at the table so that all meeting participants could be held
accountable to promises or case management suggestions made, and a
database to track aid and aid requests so that evolving unmet needs could
be reported back to the community in order to make unmet needs vis-
ible for advocacy efforts and continued fundraising to meet those needs.
Over its lifetime, the 9/11 Roundtable assisted 4,494 families and indi-
viduals through 8,751 distinct case presentation discussions by over 80
human service agencies. To these families, slightly more than $7,340,000
was distributed from 20 donor agencies. Donors ranged from entirely
faith-based donors at inception (with considerable aid from Lutheran
Disaster Response, UMCOR [United Methodist Committee on Relief], the
Presbytery of New York, the American Baptist and the Episcopal churches)
to later gaining the support of mainstream donor agencies including the
American Red Cross and Safe Horizon (formerly Victims Services).
In order to show the dynamic tool that an unmet needs table can be,
this chapter reflects on the NYC 9/11 Unmet Needs Roundtable in three
stages: (a) development within the 9/11 relief and short-term recovery
(2001–2002), (b) scaling up to incorporation within New York Disaster
Interfaith Services (2003–2005), and (c) adapting to long-term need for
coordinated services when other services had ended, but new needs were
emerging in the community (2005–2009).

Stage One: Development of the NYC 9/11
Unmet Needs Roundtable (2001–2002)

In the midst of the mayhem following the World Trade Center attack,
hundreds of New York City’s 27,474 registered nonprofit organizations
responded based on their mission or expanded their vision and interpreta-
tion of their mission in order to meet the needs of people in their commu-
nities. As large and small agencies struggled to determine what their role
should be, coordinative meetings expanded to include large, relief-oriented
agencies and small, community-based agencies. For the general public,
in the days following September 11, there were few stories covering the
nuances of how “victim” was being defined and which groups were system-
ically excluded from aid as these definitions became codified. Many of the
faith communities that typically respond to disasters—Lutheran Disaster
Response, Church World Service, UMCOR—were watching the evolving