I happened to come acrose the article Can We Trust the Red Cross? from this month’s DreamHost Site of the Month and felt rather depressing. This papragraph especially made me sick:
Despite landing in trouble for soliciting more donations than they need and squirreling the rest away, the Red Cross continues to operate this way. The organization makes a total of about $3 billion annually, about half of which is from selling donated blood. Some of this surplus money ends up in disaster relief, but it seems that much does not. Last year alone, the Red Cross spent $111 million in fund raising, and their CEO Marsha Evans made just under $652,000. It seems the the main value they offer is the free help of their volunteer force.
I think the donors would feel sad and angry if they knew their donated blood was sold but not given for free.
About 3 years ago, I came to US from China for graduate study. Knowing nothing about the charity organizations in US, I decided to make a small donation after receiving a letter from one of these organizations. Since I sent out my check, I start receiving a large amount of junk mails soliciting for money – yes paper mails, I’m not talking about emails here – from various similar organizations in the years that follow. Since then I’ve been trying to help people whom I can get in touch with directly instead of donating to charity organization. The Lance Armstrong Foundation is an exception. They seem to be a respectable organization, and I like their yellow bracelets.
Comments 1
I’m wondering if Americans are easier to give out charity or what ? ‘Cause this nation has much more volunteers participating activities than most others. If yes, those paper mails work. If no, Why don’t they stop sending so much useless junk mails, to save that postage
Posted 11 Oct 2005 at 7:43 pm ¶Post a Comment