Man, I hate natural disasters.
It’s not just because they give me that feeling of powerless and impotence against the forces of nature. It’s not because of a sense of fatalism about the downfall of human society as mother Earth strikes back at us for our transgressions. And it has nothing to do with how I feel about the loss of human life.
No, the real reason that I hate natural disasters is because of all of the charities.
I’ve mentioned before that the best way to help out a charity is to volunteer, but when disaster strikes in another country (or even in our own), volunteering is a less plausible option, so making a donation seems like a plausible idea. The problem is, making a donation is not as easy as it seems.
When people donated medicine for tsunami relief in Asia a few years ago, most of the donations (from individuals and organizations alike) sat unused. And yet there was about 4 pounds of medicine for every affected person. Why? Because the labels were in languages that the locals couldn’t understand, and there wasn’t a solid infrastructure to handle the distribution of medicine.
Food and clothing donations can often sit in warehouses and never arrive at their intended destinations. Or in some cases, aid packages are seized by militant groups and are hoarded away from the people who need them.
But there are two offenders that stand above the rest: social networks and the Red Cross.
CNN recently ran an article about the outpouring of support for Haitian earthquake victims over the Internet. But the story doesn’t really ring true. I ran a quick check of Facebook groups with the words “Help Haiti” in them, and came up with over 570 results. Yet most of the groups are like this one, where someone pledges X number of dollars (or cents) will be donated for every person who joins the group, then leaves the group, so no donations occur. The self-congratulatory feeling of joining a group means that one doesn’t feel the need to actually donate (since someone else is doing it while people join), leading to less money going to the victims who desperately need it. And most of these groups will never mention how or when or to whom the donation is going.
But the Red Cross is far, far worse.
I’d rather gloss over the 570,000 Google results for the search “Red Cross corruption”, the controversial and poor execution of aid that the group provides (noted here and here on its own Wikipedia page), the Ripoff Report comments, and the ridiculous salaries paid to its top executives. The LA times and this blog explained a lot of that already.
And if you’re thinking of using the Charity Navigator figures to tell me I’m wrong, consider that the Red Cross is reimbursed by the government for most of its costs and that it relies on a volunteer workforce. Who it charges to help.
Years ago, my dad was a volunteer helping to fight forest fires in Arizona. Many local businesses donated food, water and supplies for the volunteers, but the Red Cross charged volunteers for stale, weak coffee in small styrofoam cups and hastily-made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. So even though hardware stores and McDonald’s franchisees were donating to help the volunteers, the Red Cross made people who came to help for free pay for food. So where does the money go?
If you must give to the Red Cross, donate blood. That’s one area where they might follow through on their charitable promises. But if you want to donate funds to help people, do some research first. Or else you’ll be doing more harm than good.
NOTE: I recommend Doctors Without Borders or CARE. These charities actually help.
Shit.
No kidding.