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In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)

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Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)

#121

Post by majani »

grecy wrote: post #115
joe_the_user wrote: post #95

Haiti is a complex and contradiction-ridden place. As the poorest nation, per capita, in western hemisphere, Haiti is often the "face of poverty", with photographs of its most unfortunates featured on fund-raising newsletters of every sort but with the failures of efforts at reform being featured on every debunking of I have a personal friend, white, who served as something of a liaison, moving goods, between the ran…

It's got nothing to do with the place. I'm in West Africa now. Same story here. Same in the East too. I have met hundreds of UN and NGO workers making $1000/day, doing absolutely and completely nothing. Mostly they are proud of it. Many, many NGOs spend millions to build for example one shed or deliver one truck, which is abandoned less than 2 months later for lack of maintenance. In the same way healthcare is for pr…

You're actually agreeing with him because your point is also a bureaucracy issue.

Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)

#122

Post by arjie »

DrScump wrote: post #92
tlb wrote: post #13

A 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.

Is there a reason that they are not listed on Charity Navigator? Are they listed on any other independent charity rating site?

They're too new to be on Charity Navigator.

Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)

#124

Post by mrmondo »

donkeyd wrote: post #117
masters3d wrote: post #79

"The point is that the concern we should have is not just about the $500,000,000 donated for Haiti for which the good hearted donors received just six $400 shacks. The concern is about billions of donated dollars intended to help people all over the world. The Haiti data demonstrates that for each billion donated to the Red Cross we get a total of 12 each $400 shacks which we wouldn't put our lawn mower in. The great…

I went to Haiti last year for a vacation. I met a lot of people there working for NGOs and upper class Haitians. From what I heard from them, there are two major money leaks in the country: NGOs: They pay their employees heaps of money, to do relatively small amounts of work. These aren't the people we see on TV who get out there to work 12 hour days and save lives. These are people who go there because they need a j…

Interesting indeed. I work for an NGO / non-profit in Melbourne, Australia and we work with a /lot/ of other Australian NGOs and I can honestly say most NGOs (at least in Australia and New Zealand) are not at all like this. Salaries are generally significantly lower in the NGO/Non-profit sector and generally speaking these roles tend to attract morally driven individuals that are primarily concerned with their impact on society or at least the sector they work in (obviously a generalisation but speaking from experience).

Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)

#125

Post by salvar »

dogruck wrote: post #42
whichdan wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't go that far - companies partner with The Red Cross left and right after every major disaster, and the mainstream media downplays the problems with the organization. For the average person, there's no reason to suspect that they'd be misusing/misappropriating funds.

I suppose it comes down to the semantics of sheeple. I personally do my best to scrutinize the message put out by major corporations and the MSM.

I take it you are very smart, and not one of those stupid sheeple?

Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)

#126

Post by mseebach »

craftyguy wrote: post #43
cowholio4 wrote: post #26

One thing that gets overlooked commonly with the the Red Cross is that it is a congressional charter. [1] According to the charter the purposes of the corporation are: (1) to provide volunteer aid in time of war to the sick and wounded of the armed forces, in accordance with the spirit and conditions of: (A) the conference of Geneva of October, 1863; (B) the treaties of the Red Cross, or the treaties of Geneva, of Au…

Given their brand recognition status, any attempts by Congress to revoke their charter would be a career-ending move for the politicians involved.

There are many arrows in the quiver that an enterprising politician can use to hold an errant organization to account (it's very difficult to be against holding powerful organizations to account, regardless of the actual merits of the action). They could propose amending the charter, simply choke off funding or insisting that they submit to a thorough audit by some federal government office (for which read: do what we tell you to, or have all your dirty laundry aired on cable news).

Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)

#127

Post by dispo001 »

5mk wrote: post #109
QAPereo wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

International is fantastic, American is a travesty.

I wouldn’t call a charity with an A- rating from CharityWatch a “travesty”.

All that means is that there are many worse charities.

I tried to look into it one time and find things written by people who watched from up close. It made me physically ill long before I looked at any substantial number of them.

I think the usual formula is to "pay" the CEO 200 k and spending the rest on ever larger promotion cycles.

What is needed in the west is a huge tax on charities and other non-profits to be entirely used to monitor their activities. Then we need to write draconian laws forcing them to insure and guarantee delivery.

Any sign of failure should result in persecution and the entire staff replaced - since we have plenty of volunteers.

We need to raise the standards like that to the point where government can safely pump funds into the mechanism when a situation calls for it.

I don't want to be called, receive letters and fill out paper work. I have better things to do. I'd much rather spend 50 bucks in [extra] tax for aid than suffering 2 hours of promotion to fund promotion every year.

When is gates going to provide drinking water to the entire world? Never? Then lets put him in prison and salvage the fund.

Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)

#128

Post by dispo001 »

mseebach wrote: post #126
craftyguy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given their brand recognition status, any attempts by Congress to revoke their charter would be a career-ending move for the politicians involved.

There are many arrows in the quiver that an enterprising politician can use to hold an errant organization to account (it's very difficult to be against holding powerful organizations to account, regardless of the actual merits of the action). They could propose amending the charter, simply choke off funding or insisting that they submit to a thorough audit by some federal government office (for which read: do what w…

If there is anything I would like to see my taxes used for that would be it.

Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)

#129

Post by zxcmx »

mrmondo wrote: post #124
donkeyd wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to Haiti last year for a vacation. I met a lot of people there working for NGOs and upper class Haitians. From what I heard from them, there are two major money leaks in the country: NGOs: They pay their employees heaps of money, to do relatively small amounts of work. These aren't the people we see on TV who get out there to work 12 hour days and save lives. These are people who go there because they need a j…

Interesting indeed. I work for an NGO / non-profit in Melbourne, Australia and we work with a /lot/ of other Australian NGOs and I can honestly say most NGOs (at least in Australia and New Zealand) are not at all like this. Salaries are generally significantly lower in the NGO/Non-profit sector and generally speaking these roles tend to attract morally driven individuals that are primarily concerned with their impact…

My experience of local NGO / nonprofit workers is similar, although I see that they are frustrated with organisations that seem to increasingly spend more on seeking grants and reporting than "service delivery".

Also, well funded NGOs over here often tend to have significant government-based revenue streams, which can discourage activism on the fundamentals (which government might not agree with).

I do not question the dedication of local workers I've met, but the larger issue with respect to foreign aid is what happens to the money "in country" when it comes time to distribute goods or get things done in the local economy.

Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)

#130

Post by jnty »

treehau5 wrote: post #104
astura wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not borderline abusive, they are straight up abusive with their phone calls. If you ever decide to give blood do NOT give them your phone number. I tried to give blood ONCE and found out that I was ineligible. For the next five years or so they harassed me non stop about giving blood. I told them I was ineligible they just said "ok" but I still got phonecalls. I asked them to stop calling me but they didn't stop. Aft…

I noticed this as well. I recently decided to stop giving them blood, however, because I was actually reading the fine print for once, and apparently they send your blood off for use in research at universities and you cannot opt out.

Why is that a bad thing?
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