WITH HURRICANE RITA now making news, it's time for Americans to take a more disciplined look at their tremendous generosity. As of last week, the American Red Cross reported that it had raised $826 million in private funds for Hurricane Katrina victims. The Chronicle of Philanthropy has the total figure at more than $1.2 billion for all relief groups reporting. So the Red Cross received about 70% of all giving.
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The Red Cross money pit
REBUILDING
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday October 02, 2005 Home Edition Current Part M Page 3 Editorial Pages Desk 2 inches; 74 words Type of Material: Correction
Disaster aid: A Sept. 25 article about the Red Cross ("The Red Cross money pit") stated the organization has 3 million unpaid volunteers. It has about 1 million volunteers. Because of an editing error, the piece also said that "the Red Cross expects to raise more than $2 billion before Hurricane Katrina-related giving subsides." A Red Cross spokesperson said that although the organization needs $2 billion, it does not expect to raise that much.
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This percentage was no doubt bloated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency's mystifying release to the media of the names of 19 faith-based charities (plus the Red Cross, Humane Society and three lesser-known groups) to which the public should donate -- rather than the much wider group of established relief agencies.
This skewed giving to Red Cross would be justified if the organization had to pay the cost of the 300,000 people it has sheltered. But FEMA and the affected states are reimbursing the Red Cross under preexisting contracts for emergency shelter and other disaster services. The existence of these contracts is no secret to anyone but the American public. The Red Cross carefully says it functions only by the grace of the American people -- but "people" includes government, national and local. What we've now come to expect from a major disaster is a Red Cross media blitz.
The national Red Cross reports it spent $111 million last year on fundraising alone. And it's hard to escape the organization's warning of Armageddon if you don't call in a credit card number or send a check or donate blood (which it resells to the tune of more than $1.5 billion annually, part of its $3 billion in income).
In Southern California, we have had the spectacle of "drive-by" drop-offs of bags of money at public places such as the Rose Bowl, massively promoted by local media. Hollywood studios and stars and corporate America compete to make huge donations.
The Red Cross brand is platinum. Its fundraising vastly outruns its programs because it does very little or nothing to rescue survivors, provide direct medical care or rebuild houses. After 9/11, the Red Cross collected more than $1 billion, a record in philanthropic fundraising after a disaster. But the Red Cross could do little more than trace missing people, help a handful of people in shelters and provide food to firefighters, police, paramedics and evacuation crews during that catastrophe.
