How the Red Cross is abusing our trust

[Exposé] Where’s the $300 million you and I donated?

I’m proud to live in a nation of givers.

When disaster strikes, the first thing Americans do — if we can’t roll up our sleeves and lend a hand ourselves — is to donate.

We can always be relied on to contribute whatever’s needed — food, clothing, medical supplies, and most of all, our dollars.

And a lot — an awful lot — of those dollars are given to the Red Cross.

The Red Cross has this comforting, glowing image to it. It’s long been known as “THE” charity to donate to after a disaster.

But it turns out this organization, one that we’ve all come to trust, is abusing that trust.

And not just by a little bit either…

It’s best known for its blood drives and disaster “help.”

But the Red Cross put the “profit” in non-profit. As a $3.3 billion-dollar organization, it’s more like a mega-corporation than a charity.

Its CEO, Gail McGovern, a former AT&T executive, was paid close to $600,000 last year. Now, if she did her job well, she might be worth that colossal salary.

But it looks like all the Red Cross does well is bring in the money.

What it does with that money is another story…

A shocking expose, The Red Cross’ Secret Disaster, has just been released. And it tells in detail how the hundreds of millions we donated to help victims of the last two mega-storms — over $300 million for Sandy alone — somehow went for things other than “help.”

Secret emails and documents just uncovered tell how:

• Trucks were sidetracked from bringing water and food to those who needed it the most “just to be seen” for “public relations purposes.” Drivers were told to “drive around and look like you’re giving disaster relief.”
• After Hurricane Issac and Superstorm Sandy, people they should have been aiding were left in “dire circumstances,” including the most vulnerable, the handicapped. Many were just left in their wheelchairs, sleeping in them “for days.”
• Tens of thousands of meals had to be tossed out when “relief” workers couldn’t find out where to take them.
• And the basics of disaster help — food, blankets and even batteries — weren’t available in the critical first days after the storms.

Now all that might make more sense when you hear this:

The honorary Red Cross chairman is the commander-in-chief of broken promises himself, Obama.

That’s right, Obama — the Red Cross ambassador.

He even helped raise some of that $300 million for them. After Sandy he told Americans to donate as much as they can. “The Red Cross knows what they’re doing,” he told us.

But it’s obvious that “what they’re doing” is a dog-and-pony show.

For example, two months after Sandy people in New York and New Jersey were still in dire need of help. At the same time, one of its emergency response vehicles — those familiar white and red trucks that say “disaster relief”– was sidetracked to Staten Island for a photo-op.

This stunt involved model Heidi Klum, who posed with a box of diapers in a Red Cross truck.

Red Cross volunteers and workers — those who actually were doing something — were hopping mad. One said, “Did you know it takes a Victoria’s Secret model five hours to unload one box off a truck?”

And while they tried to hide it, reports revealed that they used millions donated after 9/11 to buy all new computers for their offices. Not to help the widows and children of the victims like you and I intended, but to make sure they had the latest version of Internet Explorer.

If all this has you thinking you never want to give your hard-earned dollars to a charity again, I know how you feel.

But there is a way you can donate and make sure it is being used the right way.

Give where you live.

Instead of mega-charities like the Red Cross, a contribution to your local church, shelter, or food bank can make a real and needed difference.

You’ll know that your donation will actually buy someone a meal or drinkable water — not a photo-op with a super model. Or a new full color monitor for the CEO’s office.

So give where you can see the real impact — and not just a pretty picture of what help would look like if they were really doing anything.

Sources:
“The Red Cross’s Secret Disaster” Justin Elliott and Jessee Eisinger, ProPublica, and Laura Sullivan, NPR, October 29, 2014, ProPublica, propublica.org