The Song Fight Bulletin Board

From Joyce Carpenter

For everyone who has contributed to the Red Cross…..I wanted to share with you my families’ experience:

We thought we would be going home tomorrow, so we have been self sufficient and staying to ourselves. Now we know that we will be here about 1 month. The officials in our parish have advised us to return home, pick up some items and then leave again. We have decided just to stay here for now. With the price of gasoline, the 8 hour trip(16 round trip) would be too costly. We have pretty much all we need.

So, we visited the Red Cross shelter in Tyler TX today, about 30 miles east of Athens, where we are staying. First we had to register and then we had our first home cooked meal in about 5 days. Home cooked Mexican food sure beats What-a-Burger and Pizza, anyday!! They also took my husband’s blood sugar and provided us with a meter we can use, since we left without his on Sunday. As some of you know, my daughter and her husband have lost everything with the flooding of their home. Theresa was able to get diapers and clothes for her 2 year old. Zachary was provided with several toys. Now that we are registered, they will provide us with 3 meals a day, money will be provided to help with the hotel expenses and food stamps are available if and when we need them.

We were not alone there….we met many people there and many don’t have any reason to go back. That’s the talk here…….not even going back. We are hearing of many that have already been offered jobs around here and many are registering their children in school. Going home for many is not an option.

My son and his family are in south Houston and have also registered with Red Cross. They also were provided with diapers for Jackie, 18 months, toys for Mitchell, 10 years old, and books for Steven, 15 years old. They were provided with food stamps and will also be provided with 3 hot meals a day. The same story applies to my nephew and his family staying with my brother north of Houston.

And the stories continue……many, many, many people are being helped with your contributions to the Red Cross………Thank you for all your help and all your prayers.

NeilThrun wrote:Yeah, crucifiction of the politicians should wait. Maybe avoided altogether. Was anyone prepared for such devestation? No, no where in the world is prepared for that amount of natural and socio-cultural disaster.

the idiot king wrote:

NeilThrun wrote:Yeah, crucifiction of the politicians should wait. Maybe avoided altogether. Was anyone prepared for such devestation? No, no where in the world is prepared for that amount of natural and socio-cultural disaster.

we knew what would happen to n.o. well in advance (we're talking years). the politicians should be crucified later for cutting budget for preparations for this catastrophe.

erikb wrote:Dude, she runs the Red Cross. They took in close to 3 billion dollars last year. That's not the kind of job you just pick up on weekends.

erikb wrote:After taking a look at this list, you can see that their fundraising efficiency is 80%. Which is to say that their advertising budget is 20% of the amount that they collected from private donations. The average was 89%. But their charitable commitment is at 91%, meaning that of all the money they spent, only 9% of it went to management, overhead and fundraising. The average was 84%.

erikb wrote:In short, for the amount they spend on advertising, they should be getting a lot more donations. They totally sucked at that in 2004. But once they have your money, they spend 91% of it on the things you want them to spend it on.

GlennCase wrote:Keep in mind, this isn't the only person getting paid either, this is just the highest paid person in the organization.

GlennCase wrote:80% efficiency ties them for 177th most efficient charity organization out of the 200 they reported. It looks like the <a href="http://www.forbes.com/finance/lists/14/ ... >Salvation Army</a> C.E.O. makes a hell of a lot less money, and has a much higher [fundraising] efficiency rating at 91%.

erikb wrote: I don't really care about how much they spend on fundraising, as long as they make alot back, and the Red Cross does. What I care about is how much of my donation will actually be spent on charity, as opposed to running the business. For the Salvation Army, their charitable commitment percentage is only 83%, and that sucks (or at the very least, it's below average). For every dollar you give to the Salvation Army, 17 cents gets spent on stuff that isn't charity. For every dollar you give to the Red Cross, 9 cents get spent on stuff that isn't charity. Eight fewer cents gets spent on people who need it when you give a dollar to Salvation Army instead of giving it to Red Cross.

GlennCase wrote:They may not have as much of a charitable commitment, but I think there is a certain salary level when it just looks like you are in the charity business for all the wrong reasons.

GlennCase wrote:I won't disagree with those stats.

But, maybe the Red Cross actually SHOULD be taking a higher percentage out of the money for their expenses. They are listed as being 408 million dollars in the hole that year (Worst income to expense ratio out of the 200 charities in the report). Yet, they can still pay their top person over half a million dollars in the same year? It sounds like they don't know how to manage the donation money properly. This does not give me faith in their ability to dispense the money in a wise manner.

HeuristicsInc wrote:glenn:

Red Cross executive salaries and benefits were -and are- paid entirely from general operating funds. To clarify, no monies from the Liberty Fund or the Disaster Relief Fund are used to pay normal salaries for any Red Cross employee, including the salary of the President and CEO. Red Cross Chairman Bonnie M. Hunter and members of the Board of Governors are volunteers and receive no salary. Red Cross implemented ongoing reviews to assure adherence to our executive compensation structure and policies, engaging an outside consulting firm to provide market compensation data and evaluations, and to tie executive compensation directly to the achievement of results. The compensation for the position as President and CEO falls well within the midrange of competitive salaries provided to us by the consulting firm. Red Cross compensation levels are intended to strike a balance: executives will be paid competitively while ensuring that our responsible stewardship of donor dollars and other revenue will be indisputable. Reviews on executive compensation and benefits are conducted continually and the Board relies on this continual flow of information to help make decisions on executive compensation and benefits.