Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is why I don't donate to charities. I believe for every dollar I would donate perhaps $0.1 would actually reach the destination and be spent on helping people. I'd rather donate directly to people in need after I meet them and can see that they are legit and there aren't several layers of middlemen leaching off the donated money. Sorry to pick on one point but isn't that throwing the baby out with the bath wat…
Wikipedia is a horrible charity if you look at how they spend their money. They get a huge income stream relative to what they use for the website.
In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)
171–180 of 182 posts
Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)
#172"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…
Is the problem with the Red Cross in general, just the American Red Cross, this particular project of the Red Cross, or with charity projects in Haiti? Because I think I've heard of other NGOs who spent a lot of money to accomplish nothing in Haiti.
I'd really like to see some more in-depth reporting on this.
I think it is very plausible that the Red Cross didn't bribe the right people or underestimated the depth of bribes it would take to get anything done. By the time they looked up, the money was gone and nothing was done and they dug their hole deeper by lying, probably expecting the local officials to back up their story. Instead, they threw them under the bus in order to attract more spending.
Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is this possible? I simply asked to never be called again, and was called perhaps once more where I reiterated this. Then I was simply never called again.
I don't know how it's possible for them to disregard my pleas to remove me from their lists. I even told them I have traveled to SE Asia and been exposed to locations with malaria (true story), but ultimately had to resort to blocking their dozens of local and 800 numbers on my phone.
They changed my number in their database promptly and effectively when I asked them to during a blood donation.
I redirected it to Google Voice and configured their numbers to go straight to voicemail. I figure if they have anything important to tell me, they'll leave a message.
Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)
#174[deleted]
Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)
#175A 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.
Thanks, Trevor. Hi all, I'm the ceo and co-founder at New Story. We're proud of the work we've done in Haiti as we've also used all local material and local labor to build the homes. What's more transparent than just the "100%" promise, is that we prove to donors via family profile pages and move-in videos the exact results of their donation. If someone donated $6k on our site now, 100% of that goes towards local mat…
Is corruption of local players a problem you've encountered?
Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mystified as to why you seem to think this is in some way an American problem. We have lots of fake charities in the EU.
In the EU charities aren't as big... Or as well branded. At least not the sketchy ones. Most big charities I know in the EU have good records... Particularly the state-sponsored ones. - to be fair I could be uninformed :)
I don't think that's at all true. There are many large organisations that spend a significant amount on staffing and marketing, masquerading as charities. The state-sponsored ones are some of the worst, as they're recycling taxpayers' money to lobby the governments that pay them, with a revolving door of lucrative executive and lobbying jobs keeping it all afloat.
Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those statistics don't include the amount of money spent fund-raising for more money, e.g. the big ones can spent almost a third of their fund raising on more fund raising: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03113/Charitie... I'm not a fan of funding more chuggers on my high street. And then how much is spent on the head office, and the executive pay and a whole load of other things that get hidden in a bu…
Most charities file a 990 that includes a calculation of how much money they spend on fundraising relative to how much they raised, for example.
looks like 6% fundraising for red cross, highest paid employee is $600k. https://p.widencdn.net/wmrybb/FY-2016-Form-990
(linked from http://www.redcross.org/about-us/who-we-are/governance )
Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They've come under some criticism for apparent lack of transparency around how donations are spent, and for allegedly having very high overheads. They are also borderline abusive with how often they will call you and harass you if you miss an opportunity to donate blood. They apparently have unlimited funds to pay phone operators.
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 gave blood with them a lot during college, as did my brothers. Then we moved out. For probably about eight years after I moved across the country they would still call my parents' house. "Hi, is Luca there?" "No, he doesn't live here anymore. Please remove him from your list." "Okay."
Thirty seconds later, the phone would ring again. "Hi, is Duncan there?" Repeat a third time for my other brother. For years. I think it's stopped now, so it didn't quite last a decade (though maybe it did for my older brother).
The Blood Center of Central Texas, on the other hand, stopped calling the first time I asked them to. Once they stopped, I resumed donating regularly.
All that aside, I highly recommend donating blood regularly--it has health benefits and is a pretty effective form of charity.
Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's funny really, outside of religion, people don't seem to be naturally inclined to be both charitable AND scrupulous. Personally, I'm ok with a charity associating their work with religion if the end result is positive. You get a lot of "secular" charities that rake in a lot of money and yet don't produce much in the way of results (White Ribbon, for example), and you also see a lot of religious charities that hav…
Hmmm Doctors Without Borders ? Humanist and secular organisation that does pretty good?
Also notewhorty for there very small bureaucratic water-head- and even more notice-able for there doctors who do not apply following overly rigid rule systems.
One of them always gave away free soap bars, so that locals could sell them on the markets. Those guys are astonishing- my deepest respect to everyone who toured with them.
Also -if you look as NGOs, who get into troubles as a quality sign (if your NGO workers get into the thick of things, they are where people really need help), Doctors without borders are always where it hurts. (Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia).
Re: In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015)
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's funny really, outside of religion, people don't seem to be naturally inclined to be both charitable AND scrupulous. Personally, I'm ok with a charity associating their work with religion if the end result is positive. You get a lot of "secular" charities that rake in a lot of money and yet don't produce much in the way of results (White Ribbon, for example), and you also see a lot of religious charities that hav…
Hmmm Doctors Without Borders ? Humanist and secular organisation that does pretty good?
As I said, not a rule just a trend.