(1)
Changes at the American Red Cross have led to more transparency at the agency. These changes include making public record of its stance on governance and ethics policy. Also, each member of the board of directors is required to sign the Board Member Affirmation of Service, which mandates that each member actively participate a minimum of 15 days per year with the organization, read the Code of Ethics, and comply with the policy. Other changes include the Office of the Ombudsman office its increased usage since its implementation. During fiscal year 2012, there were 833 constituents contacted the office versus 354 in fiscal year 2008 (Ombudsman, 2012). This increase reflects a rise in the number of internal issues as the office continues to raise awareness of its function to ensure impartiality in all concerns for the affairs of the organization.
(2)
The American Red Cross has experienced various issues in regard to the handling of donation money. The lack of effective systems and policies led to many missteps and opportunities for improvement. This essay will focus on the issues in relation to the 9/11 relief donations, Hurricane Katrina donations, and finally organizational appropriation of funds.
First, the organization was hit an unprecedented amount of donations due to the 9/11 attacks. As a result, a separate fund was established in an attempt to track the donations and the expenses for the event. Due to a lack of systems to manage the money, less than half of the funds went to the intended victims. The remaining money was spent of infrastructure improvements within the organization for future tragedies. This angered many donors whose monies did not reach the intended recipients.
Second, Hurricane Katrin...
... middle of paper ...
...dent ombudsman for ARC, work continues to be needed in regard to standardization of the requirements for transparency amongst not-for-profit organizations that receive government assistance. Similar approaches to the organizational structural in place at ARC need to be utilized at other organizations. The attempt here is not to hinder the progress of the existing institutions but to level the playing field for all of the organizations as they vie for donations money. As the number of organizations increase that operates from donations, there is a limited pool of actual donation money especially in the current economy. The standardization of those organization structures and commitments to transparency can provide more assurance to the donors that their monies will be utilized for its intended purpose and will reach the affected people that need the assistance.
Brainard, L.A., & Siplon, P.D. (2004). Toward Nonprofit Organization Reform in the Voluntary Spirit: Lessons from the Internet. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 33 (3), pp. 435-457. Retrieved from http://nvs.sagepub.com.ezproxy.liberty.edu: 2048/content/33/3/435.full.pdf+html
... as an attempt to be transparent about who is funding the organization and how the money is being spent.
Hurricane Katrina was considered as the worst hurricane in the history of United States. The winds and the rain were shattering people’s homes which collapsed and flooded. Thousands of people were suffering and dying. People were starving, and becoming dehydrated. Many people were left on the street and became homeless. After the hurricane, so many questions were left regarding the widespread damage and loss of loved ones. This devastating disaster destroyed the city of New Orleans and nearby cities and was estimated to cost $80 billion dollars in damage. State and local emergency in the affected area were struggling to perform urgent response missions such as emergency medical services, search and rescue, firefighting, giving food and water,
There are a number of issues pertaining to legal, regulatory and financial improprieties and compliance that I would advocate should be more effectively monitored by congress. The vast amounts of donor funds that are embezzled and subsequently never used for the purpose for which they were donated greatly compromises the sustainability of ARC. If the organization is to remain solvent and continue to rely on donor contributions, it requires a new financial management model that will restore stakeholder confidence and reduce occurrence of embezzlement of strategy and some form of external governance of donor funds.
Harness, Jill. “The History And Impact Of The Red Cross.” Mental Floss. N.p., 29 Oct
Nonprofit Organizations (NPOs) in New Orleans Following Hurricane Katrina. Administration In Social Work, 36(4), 359-389. doi:10.1080/03643107.2011.604401
It is important to know how the Red Cross began. It was in June 1859 when Henry Dunant went to Solferino, north of Italy. He was a spectator of a small but bloody war. French and Italians had a battle against Austrians. There were more or less 40,000 victims. He was completely horrified with the scene. He interrupted his trip to help the hurt and organized volunteers to save lives.
To start off after raising over half a billion dollars for a recovery effort. A tremendous amount of money, Red Cross made a promise of creating homes for 130,000 people. Making even less than an abysmal effort, they created 6 homes. Not even “all the perfumes of Arabia” (page 163) could wash away the stench of the mess they made. Instead of building homes they created behemoths of metal sheet and tarp. Red Cross patted themselves on the back for this nonexistent effort saying “Millions of Haitians are safer, healthier, more resilient” which is an outright lie backed with no proof.
A nonprofit should have a well thought out strategic plan in order to ensure organizational sustainability. An important component of the strategic plan should include financial initiatives. Currently the Salvation Army is considered one of the most effective organizations in the U.S. “No one even comes close to it in respect to clarity of mission, ability to innovate, measurable results, deduction and putting money to maximum use.” They administer financial policies and ethical reasoning behind the organization’s decisions that provide human services which results in sustainability of the mission.
Goodwin, J. L. (2013, 12 8). The Charity Organization Society. Retrieved from Encyclopedia of Chicago: http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/229.html
Governments, the private sector, Non Governmental Organizations and Community Organizations play vital roles in recovery. The essence of a recovery effort is the resources captures to assist, the capability of assistance and other best practices for recovering from a disaster. Rubin and Popkin, (1990) in their report entitled Disaster Recovery after hurricane Hugo in South Carolina thoroughly outline many challenges to which organization and other bodies had face in Hurricane Hugo’s recovery effort. These inefficiencies cause a spiral of increase lost of life, property and livelihood for hundreds of people to which the hurricane affected.
Over the last 20 years, there has been a significant increase in nonprofit and nongovernment organizations (NGOs) in the United States. With the increase in organizations, also came an increase in scandals and in the 1990’s multiple nonprofit and nongovernment organizations lost the public’s trust due to misuse of funds, lavish spending, and improper advances to protected populations. These charity scandals not only hurt direct organization’s reputation, but also led to the mistrust of nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations as a whole (Sidel, 2005). To combat these reputations, NGOs and nonprofit organizations began to self-regulate through employing morally obligated and altruistic employees, accountability practices, and lastly through
1: In a story in the New York Times written by David Barstow. It’s estimated that over 1.6 billion dollars have been raised by charity organizations since the attacks on Sept 11th. That money has been raised for victims of that tragic day…..But where has all the money gone?
Increasingly, not-for-profit organisations have taken to emulating the moneymaking practices of corporations. This trend has three primary causes: the decrease in funding from the public sector, the increase in competition for funds among an expanding number of not-for-profit organisations and the rise in funder pressure for not-for-profit organisati...
The Charity Organization Society was based in the scientific movement of organizations. Workers believed that charity work needed more definition and organization and that charity should be focused more on individual need rather than as a whole population. Focusing on individual need was intended to improve relief operations while making resources more efficient. They also intended to eliminate public outdoor relief. With the promotion of more organization and efficiency the new Charity Organization Societies were born. Trattner states that these new requirements for organization and efficiency spread so “rapidly that within 6 years 25 cities had such organizations and by the turn of the century there were some 138 of them in existence” (Trattner, 1999).