It is time for shaming the American Red Cross. Lack of interest in the fire victims

[truedelphi]

But then, the American Red Cross used the Lake and Napa County catastrophic fires to raise tons of money -why should they dispense it - the "precious" is theirs to keep in their pocketses!

Storiess in our local Record Bee illustrate that some fire victims are living in tents that are near a creek. Should the expected winter El Nino rains arrive, they will be in an even worse situation.

These are people with few resources, no income available, little in the way of food. A local woman comes in and helps collect dirty laundry and then returns it to the owners - and once in a while, someone makes a stink about the lack of Red Cross involvement, so they will show up with some sandwiches.

This organization needs to be audited from top to toe. It acted the same way with same callous disregard some 12 years ago after the devastating Pomona area fires in Southern California.

But Mainstream Media will never investigate the ARC, as they are smart enough to run big time ad campaigns. Networks would not want to lose that revenue. The networks like and promote the ARC so much that when the fires were still burning, they continually had the small banners at the foot of news stories reminding people to donate to the ARC.

[LiberalArkie]

1. I think they are in business to raise money for their executives. I think when Elizabeth Dole

become the head of it is when executive compensation went way up.

[KamaAina]

2. It is long past time

In my NOLA days, a friend told me that in the aftermath of Hurricane Betsy back in '65, they sold bread.

[truedelphi]

4. Like the vampirs they are, one of their principal industries is

Selling blood.

Read this and weep:

http://www.propublica.org/article/red-cross-ceo-has-been-misleading-about-donations
After a lengthy but needed discussion of how the Red Cross's claims that it spends only nine cetns out of every dollar on overhead.

That is indeed a great number, but there is a big problem - it is a made up number, bearing no actual relationship with the facts!

From the NPR, Propublica article:

After being contacted by ProPublica and NPR, the charity changed the wording on its website to another formulation it frequently uses: that 91 cents of every dollar the charity "spends" goes to humanitarian services. But that too is misleading to donors.

That is because of the unusual structure of the Red Cross. Most of what the Red Cross does is take donated blood and sell it to health care providers. Of the more than $3 billion that the Red Cross spent last year, two-thirds was spent not on disaster relief but rather on the group's blood business. The charity spent $2.2 billion on the blood business, most of which went to employee wages and benefits. By contrast, the charity spent $467 million, or 14 percent of total spending, on its famous domestic disaster response programs, including the expensive Sandy relief effort.

Nonprofit experts say that in combining the blood business spending with disaster relief spending, the Red Cross is painting a confusing picture of its operations for donors.
"It probably has the effect of making the Red Cross look better than it actually is," says Jack Siegel, a lawyer who runs the consulting firm Charity Governance.A


That is because of the unusual structure of the Red Cross. Most of what the Red Cross does is take donated blood and sell it to health care providers. Of the more than $3 billion that the Red Cross spent last year, two-thirds was spent not on disaster relief but rather on the group's blood business.

The charity spent $2.2 billion on the blood business, most of which went to employee wages and benefits. By contrast, the charity spent $467 million, or 14 percent of total spending, on its famous domestic disaster response programs, including the expensive Sandy relief effort. Nonprofit experts say that in combining the blood business spending with disaster relief spending, the Red Cross is painting a confusing picture of its operations for donors.

"It probably has the effect of making the Red Cross look better than it actually is," says Jack Siegel, a lawyer who runs the consulting firm Charity Governance.

[Auggie]

3. The Red Cross hindered efforts in the Lake Fire, according to local papers

They were more of a disrupting obstacle than help.

[KamaAina]

5. As they supposedly did in Katrina.

Keeping Walmart and others out.