My family and I have made contributions to Second Harvest Japan. http://www.2hj.org/

Second Harvest is widely regarded as a top-notch organization and I have contributed to them locally in the past.

Regarding donations, I have no idea if this will be useful, but here is an email I sent to a friend after poking around online and bouncing ideas off my friend Yumi in Tokyo:

[response to email about Give2Asia.org]

I'm pretty hesitant to donate to these organizations I've never heard of before. There seem to be quite a lot of them, and it's not entirely clear what their plan for contributing is, how their organization is set up, how they're held accountable, etc.

Yumi sent me this link, and said it's an extremely well known Japanese NGO:

<http://www.akaihane.or.jp/en/index.html>;

That page links to this "United Way Worldwide giving system", which says that money goes to "The Central Community Chest of Japan," which Yumi also says is "a famous Japanese donation organization":

<https://give.liveunited.org/page/contribute/CCCJ>;

That looks like the best option I've found. I'm still very hesitant about donating to the American Red Cross (via Amazon, or direct) because according to what I've seen them say on the subject, they have no direct connection to the Japanese Red Cross Society, and no current plans to provide funds or goods.

The Japanese Red Cross Society sounds like they are heavily involved, but I don't have an affordable way to wire money internationally:

<http://www.jrc.or.jp/english/relief/l4/Vcms4_00002070.html&#...;

There is also the New York Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City, which in this case has an option which routes 100% of the donation to disaster relief in Japan, and it's a 501(c)(3):

<https://www.nyc.gov/html/fund/html/donate/donate.shtml>;

The Japan Society of NYC was also suggested, and it's a 501(c)(3):

<http://www.japansociety.org/earthquake>;

> according to what I've seen [The American Red Cross] say on the subject, they have no direct connection to the Japanese Red Cross Society, and no current plans to provide funds or goods.

"The American Red Cross has contributed an initial $10 million to its main partner in the country - the Japanese Red Cross - to help with their medical and relief activities. As pledges are fulfilled and additional donations received, the American Red Cross plans to make additional commitments to help the people affected by the earthquake, tsunami and evolving nuclear emergency."

Cite: http://www.redcross.org/portal/site/en/menuitem.1a019a978f42...