Depending on the scale and location of the disaster, I'd tailor my donation. For a natural disaster, I trust a certain organization to handle finances with integrity and wisdom based on their vast experience . If I know, or know of, a certain individual who is near the disaster and personally asking for specific kinds of donations to help, I will send what I can. Blankets to a dialysis center in FL were wanted. Toiletries after Katrina I coordinated the making and sending of 259 drawstring bags made by sewists all over the world. We filled them with toiletries to a minister my parents knew in TX. He handed them out as we mailed them, and that went on for 5 months. One family in our school suffered a house fire and people signed up to take meals to their grandmother's house where they had relocated to. I filled a small basket with snacks for the kids' lunches so the mom just had to make the sandwich and not worry about the "extras" . She said it was very helpful to have a "grab and go" basket of snacks for the month immediately following the fire (her husband was battling cancer during this time, too, so he was too weak to work or shop).