I wonder if there is a way to make non profitsmore accountable for the money they receive from big disaster donations.
Would be nice to put the management through the legal system and if found guilty to put them inside of a locked metal cage.
In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)
11–20 of 182 posts
Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)
#12Worth re-iterating: The American Red Cross and the International Committee of the Red Cross are independent organizations, with very different reputations.
Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)
#13A plug for New Story (https://newstorycharity.org/), which has built 900+ homes in Haiti for $6000 in donations each. And they think a lot about building those homes into functional communities.
Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)
#14>But the charity will not provide a list of specific programs it ran, how much they cost or what their expenses were. Corruption, ineptitude or both? It's the American way!
This pretty much happens all over the globe.
Recently read that fair trade procuder just spend the money in bigger cars and such.
Charity.
Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)
#15It's kind of surprising people still donate to Red Cross, given their extremely poor track record. I suppose they have brand name recognition. South Park had a great jab at them, with all the 9/11 donations being stored away in an Indiana Jones lost ark style warehouse.
I'd say it's sad, but not surprising. People are sheep.
Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)
#16It's astounding how powerful the Red Cross brand is. I'd like to read a study how how much the brand influences donors. For example, try to raise money using identical mechanisms under a different header. Also, I liked this: "I'm not a big mathematician, but I can make some additions. It doesn't add up for me."
Legit question - what's the alternative?
Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)
#17Worth re-iterating: The American Red Cross and the International Committee of the Red Cross are independent organizations, with very different reputations.
YUP ... 100% knew this, just forgot. VERY good point.
Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)
#18It's astounding how powerful the Red Cross brand is. I'd like to read a study how how much the brand influences donors. For example, try to raise money using identical mechanisms under a different header. Also, I liked this: "I'm not a big mathematician, but I can make some additions. It doesn't add up for me."
Legit question - what's the alternative?
Doctors without a frontier?
It's sad though, I think many europeans would like to donate money for people in need, but when you find out things like this ... Americans really managed to ruin this as well.
Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)
#19It's astounding how powerful the Red Cross brand is. I'd like to read a study how how much the brand influences donors. For example, try to raise money using identical mechanisms under a different header. Also, I liked this: "I'm not a big mathematician, but I can make some additions. It doesn't add up for me."
Legit question - what's the alternative?
There are a few organizations that try to quantitatively evaluate charitable organizations and similar- notably (and off the top of my head), CharityWatch [1]. Donating based on their metrics (although not the irrefutable truth of the matter, likely enough) is likely to lead to better "returns" from a donation than going by brand/marketing power.
Notably, despite its prominence, Red Cross scores only a "B+" rating on CharityWatch.
[1] www.charitywatch.org
Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)
#20A plug for New Story ( https://newstorycharity.org/ ), which has built 900+ homes in Haiti for $6000 in donations each. And they think a lot about building those homes into functional communities.
That's really incredible. What's more fascinating is their 100% promise [1]:
> We send 100% of all donations directly to hire local workers and buy local materials so you know exactly where your donation is going.
Considering their Careers page lists they are hiring a software engineer, I dug a little further and found this info in their FAQ:
> How Does New Story Fund Operational Costs With A 100% Promise?
> We are committed to putting every cent of donor contributions to the building of homes. We fund our day-to-day operations by generous contributions from corporate investors and private individuals. Also, a majority of our incredible donors opt-in and add 10% onto their donation to fund New Story operations. If you are interested in investing in our organization, so we can serve even more families, email info@newstorycharity.org.
The FAQ mentions an investment opportunity, though I'm not sure what the investment is, besides charity social goodwill -- which of course, is a great thing.