Like your’s, our thoughts are with the millions of victims of the Nepal Earthquake. We know that in addition to the tragic loss of life and the impact on families, there are hundreds of villages and towns that have been destroyed: schools, places of worship, hospitals, government buildings and hundreds of small businesses are now a mound of rubble.

In the U.S., we’ve witnessed first-hand the power of small businesses reaching out to help other small businesses during times of tragedy. We’ve seen “vendors” helping “accounts”  and “customers” helping “companies,” But in such times of tragedy, labels like vendors, accounts, customers and companies are are quickly dropped and replaced with the label shared by all: people in need.

People helping people is the best way to respond to any large-scale (or small town) tragedy. But typically, especially in the first few days following the disaster, the only effective way to respond is to follow this advice: First, send money.

If you have a preferred organization to support efforts that respond to such a global disaster as the Nepal Earthquake, we encourage you to support it.

Among the many channels of global emergency relief is the International Relief Teams, an organization we support because of their record of accountability and transparency. You can find out more about their efforts on their website. You can learn of their record of transparency and accountability from the independent CharityNavigator.org.