Ah ha! I knew they were full of crap. (Get it? Relieve!)

From the Miami Herald:

For Haiti, the Red Cross has raised more than $250 million and has plans for some $80 million of that so far, said Red Cross spokesman Jonathan Aiken.

This prompted some well-deserved attention from the San Francisco Chronicle blog, and my man, Philip DeFranco, who gave this blog a shout-out last month.

Yes, what is going to happen with the other $175 million? Is this going be a Humane Society of the United States kind of thing where like NONE of the money goes to actually helping local animal shelters?

The Red Cross, a celebrity in its own right, really shouldn’t have to think that hard about where the money is going. It should go to that place with that earthquake thingy, remember? Haiti?

The Croix-Rouge screwed stuff up pretty darn bad after 9-11. Its president and CEO was forced out, you know, for unrelated causes. In 2005, the Los Angeles Times finally went public about their past scandals, even bringing up how the 1989 San Francisco Bay earthquake disaster received only a fraction of the millions donated.

Aside from the fact that we all should take a good hard look at charities, the New York Times recently discussed the concept of pooling money collected in a crisis among organizations and then redistributing based on a judicious process. It’s how disaster relief works in the U.K. and other places around the world. In the wake of the Haiti crisis, a large group of religious relief organizations, including Food for the Hungry and World Vision, openly told donors that a gift to one was a gift to all — and held daily teleconferences to divvy it out.  Apparently religion and national identity will help people work together. Human suffering in Haiti? Not so much.

Yet some organizations insist on being either “redundant” or arguably dangerous — using a disaster, real or created, to solidify their own position as the premier nonprofit in a crisis.

The Gray Lady explains why the Red Cross is being so weird:

“The Red Cross, as the largest single fund-raiser after any major disaster in the past decade, stands to lose the most. Suzy DeFrancis, a spokeswoman for the organization, said the Red Cross was not categorically opposed to a pooled fund but had many concerns. She said the organization had incurred minimal expenses to raise money for Haiti. “If you add another layer between the donor and the people who need the aid, does that eat up time? Does it add cost?” Ms. DeFrancis said. “Those are the concerns we would have because we want to get aid there as fast as possible.”

Here’s the deal: The Red Cross is the one actually adding extra layers. See:

Before the earthquake, the American Red Cross had 15 people in Haiti working on projects like malaria prevention and measles vaccines. Partners in Health, a charity based in Boston, had more than 700 doctors and nurses among a staff of almost 5,000 operating a hospital and multiple clinics in the country. Yet the Red Cross has raised nearly $200 million for its relief operations in Haiti, and Partners in Health about $40 million. [...]

“I don’t mean that I don’t think the Red Cross has a purpose — it does,” said Bill Mitchell, who advises donor organizations about giving and supports exploring alternatives to the current system. “But the Red Cross’s reputation in the last eight years has been really checkered. Can they effectively use all of this money that they are raising?”

I don’t want to understate the good work of the Red Cross. But when a group was founded on Good Samaritan principles … well, they just might find themselves blogged about on Deceiver.

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