The American Red Cross was founded in 1881 by Civil War nurse Clara Barton. It was the first U.S. relief organization and established its effectiveness with responses to the Great Thumb Fire of 1881 and the Johnstown Flood in 1889. In the 20th century, the Red Cross became a byword for humanitarianism and good works. In the 21st, the organization can seemingly do nothing right.
The troubles began 16 years ago, in the aftermath of 9/11. The Red Cross came under fire for mishandling blood and money donated to the victims and their families. After Ground Zero was declared a crime scene, the Red Cross found itself on the sidelines with little responsibility and too much money. When it came to light that the Red Cross had repurposed $200 million from its so-called 9/11 Liberty Fund, the public was outraged. Since then, hurricanes Katrina (2005), Isaac (2012), and Sandy (2012) have each brought new scandal for the charity. Emergency vehicles diverted for PR stunts, rumors of sex offenders mistakenly allowed to mingle with children, and ill-equipped emergency shelters have all been the source of bad press. When a 2015 ProPublica investigation revealed that the Red Cross had raised half a billion dollars to aid Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake but built only six permanent houses in the country, it was the last straw for many critics.
The American Red Cross is no longer given the benefit of the doubt. On August 30, just five days after Harvey made landfall in Texas, the New York Times suggested donors should send their money to other charities, criticizing the organization’s emphasis on public relations and a lack of accountability for the vast sums it raises. The rest of the media quickly chimed in, and there were calls for a boycott on social media. A Houston city councilman, Dave Martin, made headlines after begging his constituents not to donate to the “Red Loss.” “Don’t waste your time, don’t waste your money,” he said at a public meeting. Houston mayor Sylvester Turner was equally unimpressed. “If you promise people something, you got to make it happen because—otherwise—don’t promise at all,” he said, referring to the Red Cross’s delay in getting financial aid to city residents. Many displaced Houstonians were eligible to receive an immediate $400 for food and clothing from the Red Cross, but the grant website crashed the week after the flooding—ironically, due to high traffic. Much of the criticism centered around the fact that the donations website functioned without issue.
While criticism of the charity is at an all-time high, donations remain seemingly unaffected. To date, the Red Cross has raised $350 million for victims of Hurricane Harvey, $45 million for victims of Irma, and $9 million for victims of Maria. The organization’s chief public affairs officer, Suzy DeFrancis, says that the charity has seen no loss in support in recent years and characterizes the public’s response to the 2017 hurricane season as “overwhelming” and “generous.” The victims of Hurricane Maria, which struck Puerto Rico particularly hard on September 20, have drawn much less popular support than those of Harvey or Irma. Yet Puerto Rico has received the full Red Cross response—basic material aid, a system to reconnect separated families, and even disaster mental-health outreach teams to help survivors recover from shock.
The Red Cross is fundamentally different from the other well-established charities it is often grouped with, like Samaritan’s Purse or the Salvation Army. In 1905, Congress designated the organization responsible for “a system of national and international relief in time of peace” and to “apply the same in mitigating the sufferings caused by pestilence, famine, fire, floods, and other great national calamities, and to devise and carry on measures for preventing the same.” The Red Cross is burdened with an enormous task—to prepare for and respond to disasters everywhere.
Despite the congressional mandate, the organization receives only a small amount of federal money, just 2-3 percent of its annual budget on average. It relies on donor support to fund its many missions and keep it in a state of preparedness. Since 1943, the president has annually called upon the American public to support the Red Cross through the donation of blood, volunteer time, and money. In proclaiming March “Red Cross Month,” President Trump noted that in 2016 Red Cross “volunteers responded to 180 significant incidents, including wildfires, storms, flooding, Hurricane Matthew, and other emergencies at all times of the day and night.”
After any disaster, the Red Cross plays a key role in coordinating the efforts of smaller charities with state and local government. “Its function is not to look after Mrs. So-and-so whose house has flooded,” explains Leslie Lenkowsky, former CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service in 1993, the federal agency focused on service programs, “but the Red Cross will create the framework which those other groups of first responders are working in.” When the Cajun Navy rescues an elderly couple from their flooded home, their next stop is most likely a Red Cross shelter. When it’s time to start rebuilding homes, Habitat for Humanity’s partner will likely be the Red Cross.
According to Suzy DeFrancis, in the month after Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, the Red Cross organized 413,000 overnight stays in emergency shelters, 3.1 million meals and snacks, and 6,000 disaster workers from across the country. But even these numbers fail to convey the scope of the Red Cross’s cooperation with other organizations. Beth Gazley, a professor at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University, says the mega-charity “gives us a lot of information about what they do as one agency, but there’s no metrics given about the number of agencies they’ve collaborated with that really helps us understand how disaster relief gets done.”
Meals on Wheels, a national organization that delivers meals to senior citizens who are unable to leave home, partnered with the Red Cross in southern Florida in the aftermath of Irma. Though the storm was less destructive to the state than originally feared, Meals on Wheels exhausted its food supply and budget within 24 hours. Local executive director Mark Adler said he received a phone call from the Red Cross asking if Meals on Wheels volunteers were available to distribute more supplies. “They were very responsive, quick. We had a few more phone calls and the meals were there within 48 hours,” says Adler. His people were able to distribute an additional 24,000 meals thanks to the Red Cross.
Adler is unimpressed by the criticisms of the Red Cross: “I think they’re the backbone of disaster relief, especially for nonprofits that are working on a limited budget.” Adler had told the Red Cross that Meals on Wheels could handle “about 10” pallets of packaged meals; 22 arrived. The flood supplies trickled down to smaller groups such as United Cerebral Palsy and the Center for Independent Living, which passed them even further along to local food pantries and neighborhood housing authorities. “It was really this effective and efficient organic network that grew in hours to serve all of these people. One agency could never do all that alone,” explains Adler.
Much of the criticism leveled at the Red Cross says less about its competence than about how the media covers disasters. There’s a disconnect between the low-level criticism the organization receives (“Red Cross delivers flashlights without batteries”) and the scale of the charity’s work. Negative headlines appear during major disasters, but the Red Cross is working year-round in all 50 states, almost entirely without incident. The charity is currently responding to wildfires in multiple states. And if you want to send money to victims in, say, Montana, the Red Cross is the only recognizable charity available. In response to the Las Vegas shooting, the Red Cross moved 450 units of blood to local hospitals and set up an assistance center for the victim’s families.
The Red Cross frequently claims to respond to “64,000 disasters every year.” In an average year, it responds to a house fire every eight minutes—it won’t be a surprise to learn the organization installed 353,000 smoke alarms in 2016. It taught 5.3 million people CPR and other “lifesaving skills” in 2016. Most of what the charity does is never criticized, never praised, never noticed.
The Red Cross makes mistakes. Critics, however, are too quick to call for something as drastic as a boycott. A portion of the charity’s scandals result from ill-advised attempts to stay ahead of the criticism (empty trucks were ordered to drive around just after Hurricane Isaac). Critics watch the Red Cross’s every move and then complain that their prey is a polished, empty-chested corporate machine.
Without donations, the Red Cross would quickly fail. In 2015, a relatively quiet year, the organization had a $159 million deficit. Iowa Republican senator Charles Grassley introduced the American Red Cross Transparency Act last year, which would give Congress greater access to the charity’s records. Fair enough: Aggressive oversight is appropriate for an organization with a nearly $3 billion budget and preferential treatment from presidents, celebrities, and corporations. But as Lenkowsky notes, “If we didn’t have an organization like the Red Cross we’d have to invent it.”
Americans are wonderfully generous in the face of a catastrophe. The Red Cross gives citizens a place to direct their money and channel their desire to help. We can sleep easy knowing there is someone else planning for the worst.
Grant Wishard is an editorial assistant at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
