From the article:
What you shouldn't do is give money to charities that are raising money off the disaster. The New York Times' Stephanie Strom explained why last month:
[W]ealthy Japan is not impoverished Haiti. And many groups are raising money without really knowing how it will be spent — or even if it will be needed. The Japanese Red Cross, for example, has said repeatedly since the day after the earthquake that it does not want or need outside assistance. But that has not stopped the American Red Cross from raising [tens of millions of dollars] in the name of Japan’s disaster victims.