The part most people do not know
On 2 September 2026 the FDNY added thirty-six names to its World Trade Center Memorial Wall. That wall now holds 438 names, and every single one is a firefighter or EMS worker who died later, of an illness they got from the dust at Ground Zero.
The department lost 343 members on the day itself.
So the fire department has now buried ninety-five more people from the aftermath than it lost in the towers, and it added three dozen more last week. The 2,977 people killed on 11 September 2001 are the number everyone knows. The number still moving is the other one.
This year, for the first time in twenty-five years, the memorial ceremony has a seventh moment of silence. The other six are each pinned to a minute on a clock: the two impacts, the two collapses, the Pentagon, Flight 93. The seventh has no time attached to it, because it is for everyone who has died in the years since. The Memorial announced it in May 2026 and it is permanent from now on.
That is the institution itself formally acknowledging that the day did not end.
Are 9/11 first responders still getting sick?
Yes, and the count is climbing rather than tailing off.
Many of the illnesses linked to the dust have long latency periods, which is why diagnoses keep arriving twenty-five years later. As of 30 June 2026 there were 57,044 certified 9/11-related cancers in the World Trade Center Health Program - up 2,088 in a single quarter. Of the 145,275 people enrolled, 97,800 are certified with at least one 9/11-related condition. Two-thirds of everyone on its books.
Two things about that surprise almost everybody.
It is mostly not firefighters. Office workers, residents, students and people who simply walked through lower Manhattan - the Program calls them survivors rather than responders - now account for more certified 9/11 cancers than responders do. 28,913 against 28,131. The public image of 9/11 illness is a fireman. The larger group is people who went to work.
And nobody officially counts the dead. The World Trade Center Health Program does not track cause of death for its members; its own quarterly summary says so in plain language. Twenty-five years on, there is no official federal record of how many people 9/11 has killed.
The families, and the ones still waiting
More than three thousand children lost a parent on 9/11. More than a hundred were born in the months afterwards, to mothers whose husbands had already been killed - they never met their fathers. Those babies are in their mid-twenties now, some with children of their own. Which is why the organisation founded a week after the attacks to stand by them, Tuesday's Children, renamed itself Tuesday's Promise this summer.
And 1,099 of the 2,753 people killed at the World Trade Center have never been identified - forty per cent. The New York City medical examiner is still working on it. On 24 August 2026 it identified the 1,654th victim, using forensic genetic genealogy for the first time on a 9/11 case. Some bone fragments have been tested ten or fifteen times without a result.
Eleven hundred families still have nothing to bury. Two weeks ago, one of them got an answer.
How to check a charity yourself, in ninety seconds
Anniversary weeks bring out both the best and the worst of charitable fundraising. Three habits protect you completely.
- Verify the EIN. Every organisation below has its EIN listed. Put it into the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search and it will tell you whether the organisation is currently in good standing - and whether its exempt status has been automatically revoked for failing to file. Then look it up on Charity Navigator or the BBB Wise Giving Alliance.
- Check how recent the rating is. A charity rating is calculated from the most recent tax return the charity has filed, which can be years old. Three or four stars on a 2022 filing tells you what an organisation was like in 2022. If the ratings site shows no recent filing, that is information.
- Be careful with personal fundraisers. A registered nonprofit files public accounts you can read. A personal GoFundMe does not. Both can be entirely genuine - only one is checkable.
Below, ratings are given as stars rather than percentage scores, because the star ratings are stable and the percentages are not consistently published.
Responders who are still sick
HEART 9/11
EIN 20-8583681 · Charity Navigator 4 stars · heart911.org
Founded by FDNY, NYPD, Port Authority Police and New York building-trades members. Three things: it deploys skilled tradespeople and responders to disaster sites, it runs a Responder to Responder fund giving direct financial help to first responders in crisis, and it operates a Center for Strength and Resiliency for mental health. Revenue of $1.36m in the year to December 2025, filed June 2026 - one of the most current filings on this list.
Friends of Firefighters
EIN 01-0611469 · Charity Navigator 3 stars · friendsoffirefighters.org
Free, confidential mental health counselling and peer support for active and retired FDNY firefighters and their families, deliberately run outside the department's own channels so members will actually use it. Operates from a restored firehouse in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Serving members continuously since 2001. Revenue $1.48m in 2024.
Note the leading zero in that EIN - some databases render it as eight digits, which is wrong.
FealGood Foundation
EIN 20-5187809 · Charity Navigator 3 stars · fealgoodfoundation.com
John Feal lost half a foot in the Ground Zero cleanup and has spent twenty years since organising sick responders to lobby Congress - the campaign, alongside Jon Stewart, that got the Zadroga Act passed and the Victim Compensation Fund extended. The foundation gives direct financial assistance to sick and injured responders. Small and founder-driven at $277k revenue in 2024, and heavily weighted towards advocacy, which is either the point or not what you are looking for.
Families of those killed
Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation
EIN 02-0554654 · Charity Navigator 4 stars · CharityWatch A+ · t2t.org
The largest 9/11-origin charity in America by a wide margin, and the one most readers will already have heard of. Named for a firefighter who ran through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel in his gear to reach the towers and was killed. It pays off mortgages for families of first responders and military members killed in the line of duty, and builds adapted smart homes for catastrophically injured veterans.
Two honest notes. Its work is now largely not 9/11-specific - 9/11 is its origin and its framing, and most current beneficiaries are line-of-duty deaths since. And it is very large: revenue of $559m in 2024 against $381m of expenses, with net assets of $501m. That reserve is a feature for some donors and a reason to look elsewhere for others. No watchdog has criticised it; CharityWatch rates it A+ and Charity Navigator has given it four stars twelve years running.
Answer the Call
EIN 13-3340675 · Charity Navigator 4 stars · answerthecall.org
Formally the New York Police & Fire Widows' & Children's Benefit Fund. Continuing, unrestricted financial support - not a one-off grant - to the families of New York police officers, firefighters, Port Authority police and EMS personnel killed in the line of duty. Currently supports over 500 families. It predates 9/11, having been founded in 1987; the attacks expanded it enormously.
Tuesday's Promise
EIN 52-2347446 · Charity Navigator 4 stars · Available in Ritmo · tuesdayspromise.org
Founded on 18 September 2001, one week after the attacks, for the children who had lost a parent that morning. Youth mentoring for ages six to eighteen, peer support groups, and case management. It now serves 9/11 families, families of 9/11-related illness, and military families bereaved since 2001. Renamed from Tuesday's Children in 2026 because the children grew up. Revenue $1.9m in 2024, and declining for three years - worth knowing, and an argument for giving rather than against it.
Survivors and long-term mental health
Voices Center for Resilience
EIN 16-1639299 · Charity Navigator 2 stars · voicescenter.org
Long-term mental health support, peer groups and commemoration for victims' families, responders and survivors, plus training for other communities recovering from mass violence. Legally still Voices of September 11.
The two stars need explaining rather than hiding. Its financial health score is the weak part, following three consecutive deficit years to 2023. 2024 was a genuine turnaround - $865k revenue against $760k of expenses - and it is visibly active, with 25th anniversary programming and support groups scheduled through December 2026. It does work almost nobody else does. But it is not in the same financial bracket as the four-star organisations above, and you should know that before you decide.
The day of service
9/11 Day
EIN 45-0491886 · Charity Navigator 4 stars · Available in Ritmo · 911day.org
Two men started this in 2002: David Paine, and Jay Winuk, whose brother Glenn was a lawyer and a volunteer firefighter who ran towards the towers and was killed. They spent seven years campaigning to have September 11 recognised as something other than the worst day, and in 2009 it was signed into federal law as the September 11 National Day of Service and Remembrance. Paine's stated reason: they did not want the attackers to have the last word on how America would remember the date.
Their volunteers pack around twenty million meals every anniversary across about fifty cities, distributed through Feeding America food banks. Tens of millions of Americans now take part in the day in some form, making it the largest annual day of charitable service in the country. Revenue $6.9m in 2024, its largest year.
Memory, education, and the other two sites
Most "where to donate for 9/11" lists are entirely about New York. Two of the three attack sites are not in New York.
National September 11 Memorial & Museum
EIN 61-1745872 · Charity Navigator 4 stars · Available in Ritmo · 911memorial.org
The reflecting pools in the footprints of the towers, and the museum beneath them. It maintains the victims' names and the Memorial Glade, runs the annual reading of the names, and does the education programming - which runs free for schools across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
That last part matters more than it sounds. A hundred million Americans are now too young to remember 9/11. Sixty per cent of eighteen to twenty-four year olds first learned about it at school, according to Pew Research Center polling published in September 2026 - while 83% of adults born before 2001 can still tell you exactly where they were standing. Two populations, one date: one holding a memory, the other holding a lesson plan. In another twenty-five years there will be nobody left who was there.
Note that about three quarters of its income is admissions rather than donations, so its finances track visitor numbers - it ran a $19m deficit in 2024.
National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial Fund
EIN 43-2018221 · Charity Navigator 3 stars · pentagonmemorial.org
Founded by families of the 184 people killed at the Pentagon and on American Airlines Flight 77. It built and helps maintain the Pentagon Memorial, and is currently raising for a $35m Visitor Education Center - roughly $15m raised so far, plus $12m of federal funding in the FY2026 defense bill. Groundbreaking is scheduled for 10 September 2026, the day before the anniversary.
Friends of Flight 93 National Memorial
EIN 27-0505853 · Charity Navigator 3 stars · flight93friends.org
The official National Park Service philanthropic partner for the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Funds the Tower of Voices, visitor centre programming, education and memorial upkeep beyond what federal appropriations cover.
One to watch out for
The 9/11 Tribute Museum closed permanently in August 2022, citing pandemic losses. Its name still ranks well in search results and it is easy to confuse with the Memorial & Museum, which is a different and very much operating organisation. If you find yourself on a page for the Tribute Museum, you are in the wrong place.
More generally: if a charity's most recent public tax filing is three or more years old, treat that as a reason to pause rather than a technicality. Three consecutive years of unfiled returns triggers automatic loss of tax-exempt status - which means your donation may not be deductible and, more to the point, that nobody may be there to receive it.
If you cannot give much
Most people reading this are not looking to write a large cheque, and the honest thing to say is that they do not need to.
Twenty-five years is the relevant timescale here, not twenty-five dollars. The responders will still be sick next year. The identifications will still be going. The mentoring appointments are already in the calendar for next month. Against a problem shaped like that, a small amount repeated is worth more than a larger amount once - a dollar a day is $365 a year, and it arrives in the eleven months when nobody is posting about it.
We do not have a generosity problem. We have a consistency problem.
Which is also why the week after the anniversary matters more than the anniversary. Every September there is a wave of remembrance and then a very quiet twelfth. The responders are still sick on the twelfth.
The short version
Pick the group that matches what you care about, check the EIN and the date of the most recent filing, and if all you can manage is something small then make it repeating rather than large.
Three of the organisations above - Tuesday's Promise, 9/11 Day and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum - are among the causes in Ritmo, where you give a dollar a day and choose which one gets it each morning. Nothing is taken out of your donation. But this guide works without us, which is the point of writing it.
Turn remembrance into one concrete act
Choose a meal, a lesson, responder care, or a scholarship day in Ritmo's 9/11 campaign.
See the 9/11 campaignRelated reading: our guide to donating after the Colombia earthquake.
Sources
FDNY / Firehouse, September 2026 · National September 11 Memorial & Museum, May 2026 · CDC / NIOSH World Trade Center Health Program · NYC Office of Chief Medical Examiner, August 2026 · Pew Research Center, September 2026 · CharityWatch on Tunnel to Towers · ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer · Charity Navigator · Pentagon Memorial Fund federal funding.