From Bloomberg:

Four of the largest U.S. foundations, which have given a combined $131.8 million to rebuild Gulf Coast communities destroyed by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, say the effort is proving to be a slow and difficult slog, a new survey says.

While corporations focused most of their giving on immediate relief programs, foundations are supporting longer-range efforts to restore schools, libraries, health-care facilities and economic development.

“Those engaged in longer-term recovery and rebuilding activities felt that those efforts would require a lot more time — generally much longer than they had initially expected,” the New York City-based Foundation Center said in its report today.