American Red Cross Analysis

American Red Cross is a humanitarian organization founded by Clara Barton and her acquaintances on May 21, 1881 in Washington, D.C. Being an independent and charitable entity, Its devoted mission is to help those in need in the whole nation of the United States, and in connection with other networks throughout the world. This non-for-profit organization relies on substantial contributions of blood, money, and cost-recovery fees from the society to fund its lifesaving services and programs. It provides assistance to the casualties of disasters in the U.S., military members and their families; collects, processes, and distributes blood; provide health and safety training, and international relief. Despite of the organization’s fulfilling mission,

The management promised to construct 700 houses, only six were built, but didn’t want to unveil the details of where did the donations go. Moreover, when two destructive disaster – Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Isaac – hit the United States in 2012, Americans have donated hundreds of million dollars to Red Cross to help thousands of casualties of the storms. According to the investigation of ProPublica and NPR, the charity failed to respond to its mission, not able to meet the needs of the victims of the disaster. Jim Dunham, one of the drivers, said that dozens of trucks have been ordered to be deployed to deliver aids but were almost empty, no reliefs to be provided. Based on interviews and documents, Red Cross didn’t have sufficient basic supplies for the victims, or sometimes if they have more than enough, those were just put to

As GAO found that the government, including watchdog agencies such as BBS Wise Giving Alliance and Charity Watchdog, do not have a regular and external evaluations on Red Cross’s services and performance, thus it recommends the congress to institute a legislation regarding this. In response, Representative Bennie Thompson from Mississippi has created a bill to audit the finances, disaster response, and services outside the country of the organization. Thompson has stated in the interview that there’s no full cooperation from Red Cross when GAO has conducted its first investigation or inquiry and they did not permit GAO with “unconstrained access” after several requests of significant information. He also mentioned that McGovern tried to have Thompson stop GAO’s inquiry. These have created more suspicions and doubts toward Red Cross. An Iowa republican, Senator Chuck Grassley has involved himself, as well, with the issue. He asked the federal investigators to provide him with the name list of all the officials of American Red Cross who did not cooperate with GAO. He is doing his own research and analysis on the organization’s records and questions threw at Red Cross in relation to how they spent the half a billion dollars raised after the earthquake in