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In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

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Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#171

Post by anigbrowl »

jonstokes wrote: post #60

My wife and I worked in some Red Cross shelters in Lake Charles, LA in the immediate aftermath of Katrina. I wrote a bit about what I was doing here: http://arstechnica.com/security/2005/10/disaster-livecd/ My take-away from that is that I would never, ever donate a dime to that organization. The people in the local chapters who were the first to respond immediately after the disaster were fantastic. But when the nat…

nthing the request for you to write it. The more you write the more you will remember. A great approach for this if you're not ready to do in public is write emails to each other, then organize the content periodically.

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#172

Post by anigbrowl »

avar wrote: post #16

The biggest revelation to me in that article, which I feel should be highlighted more, is that the Red Cross provides almost zero information about how it spends its money. It refuses to provide more than very vague information about how the money was spent in Haiti (information like "35% of $488 million on shelters"), with no specific details about what projects they spent the money on, how those projects went etc.…

While it never provides as much information as one might like, I've found it extremely instructive to look up the 'form 990' of any nonprofit I deal with (including if I am considering applying for a grant or something). You can find out how much the executives are paid, and something about their major relationships with both donors and receivers.

You can also learn about relationships with other nonprofits, which can be particularly interesting in the political sphere. For example, if you look up the 990s of some conservative immigration organizations, you quickly find that what seem like 10 or 12 independent advocacy groups representing a broad swell of public opinion are actually all financed and managed by the same small set of people. Or that quite a few nonprofits don't actually do very much beyond draw down the bequest left by some dead rich person who cared about a particular issue. It'll make you view the charitable tax deduction ver y differently - there's a lot of people making a nice living and effectively getting a 20% subsidy from taxpayers.

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#174

Post by jonbishop »

RobertoG wrote: post #58
jacquesm wrote: post #3

I stopped giving to 'big charities' twenty years ago and since then have only helped people locally where I can see what happens to the money. That's a real pity because of course on a relative scale those are probably much less in need than the people in Haiti (and Nepal and other areas devastated by natural disasters). But the red cross - once a paragon of virtue - and a number of other big time charities that were…

Maybe is time for them to modernize of close. I think that Internet make possible new models of charities. A donation can be, at the same time, not local and very personalized. I would like to recommend watsi: https://watsi.org/ You can donate to concrete people and, they give you an accurate report, after the fact, of what happened. I think we need more charities like them. Maybe something with education? Disclaimer…

I second the Watsi recommendation. The combination of their transparency, their 100% donation distribution, and clearly showing me who gets my money/what they get it for has made me comfortable giving to a non-local charity for the first time in years.

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#175

Post by bduerst »

shawnee_ wrote: post #73
nodata wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Red Cross provides almost zero information about how it spends its money. If that is true, how can Charity Navigator rate it 80.5/100? http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary...

Have a look at RC's "Annual Report" from 2014 ... http://www.redcross.org/images/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m4... This is a fluff piece full of pictures and words. No numbers or financial statements. On page 26 there are a couple pie charts that vaguely outline some general categories of outflows and inflows. No details. If a NYSE company (or even a private company) tried to put out an Annual Report with this kind of…

>This is a fluff piece full of pictures and words

That's because it's for benefactors, and not the publicly-available IRS-990 form that details what you're looking for.

If you want major financials, you can see them here: http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/530/5301966...

It also gives salaries of the execs too (president makes $550k/yr)

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#176

Post by orbitingpluto »

pvaldes wrote: post #166
orbitingpluto wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to counter with the fact that the CIDA worker thought that this was a complete waste of resources. Sending a team of people to look at how pretty the toilets are is ridiculous. If you can't see that, please don't oversee any charity money. And I never said it was a doctor. And it wasn't. Just an official taking a tour.

> Sending a team of people to look at how pretty the toilets are is ridiculous Not if you have paid big money for those toilets. To survey and document if the work was really done is a normal procedure all around the world to increase transparency in organizations. And yes, it costs a lot of money (it saves money also).

Again, no aid was done for these toilets. Seriously, get the point. A team was sent to check out the crappers for the sole sake of the comfort of a senior official in CIDA. CIDA employee was complaining about it. Yikes.

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#177

Post by sanderjd »

skillachie wrote: post #138
sopooneo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it be that actually getting things done in horrible environments requires interacting with, and paying off, some shady people? This is of course a charitable guess, but could it be that the Red Cross has made a decision to make morally questionable choices in the short term in support of the greater good, and they know they can't publish such truths and continue to exist?

They are just lining their pockets hence their reluctance to be fully transparent. 1)Set up a few small projects 2)Take a few pictures 3)Create a few press articles to appear as if all funds are being sent to the people in need Rinse and repeat when the next disaster hits. All charity based organizations should have no problem being fully transparent. Do not make excuses for them

And yet that doesn't speak to your parent's actual question, which is a good one: how does an organization balance transparency and the necessity to get things done despite potentially awful conditions on the ground? Certainly organizations doing longer-term work can afford to spend time finding ways to route around corruption, but that could be incredibly difficult in many emergency situations, and incredibly damaging for an organization's reputation when shady dealings come to light.

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#178

Post by droithomme »

bretthagler wrote: post #160
dsugarman wrote: post #24

Does anyone know anything about the effectiveness of other Haiti efforts like Mercy Corps?

Hey - the CEO of http://newstorycharity.org (YC S15), we fund houses in Haiti and are radically transparent and accountable. See where 100% of donations go: (1) http://newstorycharity.org/roseline *be sure to click on the home cost breakdown. The 33 families we've funded in 6 months: (2) http://newstorycharity.org/families-page#funded-families Example of a video every donor gets: (3) http://newstorycharity.org/maria-…

This looks very interesting. So donors can pick a family and fund a house directly. Your spreadsheet shows a total building cost of about $6000 including everything and the houses are clearly not pressboard shacks.

Is your agency having problems dealing with title claims like the Red Cross is claiming is the issue that prevented them from fulfilling any of their promises to build?

Also, another source claims that the Red Cross only spent $400 on each of the 6 permanent homes they managed to build (http://hotesfoundation.org/500-million-for-6-shacks-in-haiti...). Since you've been down there and are involved with building I wonder if you happen to have seen the 6 permanent $400 Red Cross homes? What are they like? I wasn't able to find photos of those, only of the temporary shelters made of press board, and the tents.

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#179

Post by earless1 »

bretthagler wrote: post #152

We could fund 83,000 homes in Haiti with $500,000,000. We're Newstorycharity.org - a current YC nonprofit working in Haiti to crowdfund homes - 100% of public donations go to home construction - donors see exactly who they give to before they donate and a video of the EXACT family they funded in their new home after We're launching a summer campaign "100 Homes in 100 Days" [newstorycharity.org/100] in Haiti, and woul…

Do you guys ever need volunteers that speak English and Creole fluently?

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#180

Post by skillachie »

sanderjd wrote: post #177
skillachie wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are just lining their pockets hence their reluctance to be fully transparent. 1)Set up a few small projects 2)Take a few pictures 3)Create a few press articles to appear as if all funds are being sent to the people in need Rinse and repeat when the next disaster hits. All charity based organizations should have no problem being fully transparent. Do not make excuses for them

And yet that doesn't speak to your parent's actual question, which is a good one: how does an organization balance transparency and the necessity to get things done despite potentially awful conditions on the ground? Certainly organizations doing longer-term work can afford to spend time finding ways to route around corruption, but that could be incredibly difficult in many emergency situations, and incredibly damagi…

>>shady dealings come to light.

Most of the shady dealings that would come to light here will be within the organization. How much time have you spent in the Caribbean or the "third world"? Time and time again I see charities pop up but just to take advantage of donations.

Its always easier to point the finger in the opposite direction when time comes for accountability. Expose the shady dealings and set the truth free. Then you will see the "shady dealings" and yes if the organization is indeed corrupt exposing the truth should hurt them if not close them down all together. Let the donated funds go to a more effective and honest charity

DO NOT MAKE EXCUSES

All charity based organizations should have no problem being totally transparent. Failure to show the impact and details of what was done is indicative of an opportunistic organization that may be corrupt. “Money and funds without obligations and accountability?...Don’t mind if I do!" That is the apparent mindset

Sad but true for a large amount of charities

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