International humanitarian organizations working in Nepal in the aftermath of two earthquakes last spring are spending as much as one-sixth of donated funds on overhead, the Thomson Reuters Foundation reports.

A survey of sixteen large charities that have actively sought donations specifically for Nepali earthquake relief through PayPal's donations page found that the reported overhead rate ranged from 5 percent at the Salvation Army World Service Office, 8 percent at CARE USA, 9 percent at the American Red Cross, and 10 percent at the American Jewish World Service, to 13 percent at Mercy Corps, 17 percent at AmeriCares, and between 11 percent and 20 percent at SOS Children's Villages. AmeriCares president and CEO Michael Nyenhuis told Reuters that the organization had provided about $21 million worth of medicines and medical supplies for distribution in Nepal, and that 17 percent was not a high number. "USAID approves indirect cost rates for those they grant money to, and those are usually in the 20 percent range," said Nyenhuis.

Of the relief organizations that provided data on the funds they had disbursed to date, the American Jewish World Service had spent about $360,500 of the $2.4 million it raised for Nepali earthquake relief, while the Salvation Army had spent nearly $900,000 of $1.5 million raised.

Local communities have expressed frustration with the response to the quakes in April and May, which killed nearly nine thousand people, with some claiming to have seen scant evidence of nearly $475 million raised through United Nations appeals. The UN has said that despite pledges totaling $4.1 billion from foreign governments and international agencies, the Nepali government, which coordinates and approves NGO activity, has spent nothing on reconstruction in the first four months after the quakes.