The wildfires engulfing the Los Angeles area might reshape what Southern California will look like for years to come. Within a week, approximately 30,000 acres of land have burned, thousands forced to evacuate from their homes, and at least 24 people lost their lives, as of Tuesday morning.

After major disasters like this one, one of the most common questions people ask is how to help. Ordinary people are extraordinarily generous in response to tragedies. Almost half of Americans reported donating to Hurricane Katrina relief, and nearly three-quarters gave to charity after 9/11. People also give generously after disasters overseas when they hear about them — though the media covers some tragedies much more extensively than others.

But it’s surprisingly challenging to turn this generosity into results for the people affected by disasters. Individual donors can’t typically do much to speed search-and-rescue efforts. (And individuals trying to be rescuers themselves can just add to the number of people in danger.) In the event of hurricanes and typhoons, roads and airports are often flooded, making it hard to get supplies to where they’re needed.

Another complication is that the generous response to disasters can bring in an extraordinary flood of money compared to the typical budget of most local charities. Most charities have a small budget and are accustomed to operating within it. They might be able to benefit from 20 percent more money, or even twice as much, but if deluged with several hundred times their typical operating budget, they often don’t know how to move it toward the people who need it most. Waste and corruption are serious concerns in disaster relief operations, spectacularly highlighted by the infamous fake 9/11 charities.

For all of those reasons, disaster relief, especially in the immediate aftermath of disasters like the Los Angeles fires, can be difficult to do effectively. People who donate in those situations may be disappointed to learn that their donations haven’t been especially useful. And because of that track record, donors and charities concerned with most effectively helping people in need often don’t target disaster relief at all, instead opting for donations to areas where there’s no immediate catastrophe and less complexity and uncertainty. Doing so is almost always more cost-effective.

But these problems with disaster relief don’t have to lead to paralysis. For the potential donor, effective giving in response to disasters requires looking at potential charities with........

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