With ongoing media coverage of the disaster in Haiti, Americans are joining people from around the world in opening their wallets to help. Well-established and well-known charities have been at work in Haiti since soon after the devastating earthquake struck eight days ago. And many charities had operations in the impoverished country before the quake struck.

The terrible destruction caused by last week's earthquake has been made worse by lax or nonexistent building codes and a generally inadequate infrastructure of roads, electricity service and water.

The needs in Haiti are tremendous. Recovering victims and treating survivors has received the most attention. But inadequate supplies of food and clean water threaten many more than those hurt in the quake.

Over the long term, it's clear from media reports that Haiti will need to be rebuilt — from buildings and infrastructure to health care, education and government.

The terrible suffering in Haiti has re-awakened the celebrated American compassion. Donations are flowing to scores of charities at a rate of millions of dollars a day.

Donors to charitable causes have learned in recent years that some charities are more efficient than others when it comes to converting money to aid for people in need. That means some organizations get 90 or 95 cents of every donated dollar converted to food, medicine, water or shelter. Other, less-efficient charities eat up more money in administrative costs.

Increasingly aware of these differences, many Americans will do some research and seek out the most efficient and effective charities when deciding to donate money to help Haitians.

Another factor that has received attention recently involves transaction fees charged by credit card companies and banks.

A report by the Huffington Post last week explained that banks and credit cards normally take a slice of charitable donations made with credit cards. On average, banks and credit card companies make an estimated $250 million a year by taking about a 3 percent slice from every charitable donation made with a credit card. All credit card transactions have these fees applied.

In 2004, during the worldwide tsunami-relief effort, credit card companies and banks agreed to waive their fees, including so-called interchange fees, which are a huge source of profits for banks tied to all credit card purchases.

But new public awareness of this skimming of money off the top of charitable contributions apparently has put banks and credit card companies on the spot. This week, it's been learned that major card companies have again agreed to eliminate their normal transaction fees, thus allowing every penny of every donation to make it to the intended charity working in Haiti.

Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover have agreed to waive fees for some donations for relief work in Haiti.

Not all the card companies are offering the same deals, however. For instance, Visa said it would not charge fees for charitable donations to Haiti through the end of February. But Visa's deal applies only to a select group of charities.

Similarly, MasterCard said it would not charge fees for donations made to the American Red Cross, AmeriCares, UNICEF, Save the Children and CARE U.S.A.

Other card companies have announced similar programs.

But each of the credit card companies appears to understand it does not look good to be skimming off the top of charitable donations meant to alleviate suffering in the aftermath of Haiti's devastating earthquake.

It would not be good public relations for news reports to reveal that credit card companies and card-issuing banks made millions of dollars of profits from charitable contributions from Americans wanting to help in Haiti.

Waiving credit card fees was the responsible thing to do.