With the 2006 hurricane season just weeks away, a sense of urgency and national scrutiny surrounds the 28th Annual National Hurricane Conference in Orlando, where over 2,000 emergency managers and disaster response experts met to learn from last year's mistakes.

Acting FEMA Director R. David Paulison told them, among other things, that his agency is retooling -- improving "logistics tracking" and "commodity replenishment capacity," that is, focusing on figuring out on-the-ground situations immediately, learning what kinds of supplies are needed where and delivering them via new systems for instant tracking and quick rerouting of trucks.

But channeling items where and when they are needed proved an elusive goal for the United States after Katrina, the Asian tsunami, the earthquake in Pakistan and famine in Africa. In addition to professional emergency managers, private individuals should also learn from this bitter experience.

There are many useful things ordinary citizens can do to help with reconstruction and new disaster relief. Unfortunately, despite the best intentions, donating relief goods such as food, blankets, clothing, hygiene items, etc., is not one of them.

America's instinct to ship its surplus to disaster areas is so strong that only now has the deluge of donated items to New Orleans charities slackened. The IRS even made special provision for it in the 2005 tax year: "apparently wholesome" food donated after Katrina hit Aug. 27 and before Jan. 1 is actually deductible.

However, sending food or commodities, except in specific, rare circumstances, does more for donors than for intended beneficiaries. Donated goods get in the way, are hard to store, time-consuming and expensive to ship, and too often arrive after the need is gone.

Consequently, Episcopal Relief and Development, the organization I lead, neither accepts nor brokers any donated goods. Neither does the American Red Cross, noting on its Web site that "unsolicited, spontaneous donations of goods and services from individuals and community groups, though well intentioned, have hidden costs and pose a number of complications for relief efforts."

The United Way introduced the on-line tool Gift Match as a way of matching certain non-financial donations to real need, but even it rejects food and clothing as too difficult and expensive to transport. That is a nice way to describe some of the more egregious anecdotes known to relief organizations -- Arctic-quality sleeping bags sent to Central America, high-heeled shoes to rural populations, etc.

I toured the Gulf Coast soon after Katrina and saw firsthand the piles of donated clothing and goods rotting in parking lots in the hurricane zone, a sad end to good intentions and proof that we should rethink this approach.

Instead of cleaning out the pantry and shipping surplus goods, what tax policy and donor appeals ought to emphasize is financial support for training and capacity building for local communities, both in the United States hurricane zones and disaster- or famine-prone regions worldwide.

This is the only strategy that works long-term. Only by strengthening local institutions, including churches and other civil society networks, can we address the source of local poverty that compounds disasters. All the donated cans of soup in the world can't solve that problem and may in fact make it worse.

This year, when disasters strike, instead of sending food, donors should send money to buy food locally.

It will be a sign that we have indeed learned from 2005's mistakes when we institute special tax deductions for seed money to increase local capacity in potential disaster areas, create an upsurge in giving in this category, and learn to channel it effectively.

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Robert W. Radtke is the president of Episcopal Relief and Development (http://www.er-d.org/). These are his personal views.