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by cowholio4 3185 days ago
One thing that gets overlooked commonly with the the Red Cross is that it is a congressional charter. [1]

According to the charter the purposes of the corporation are:

(1) to provide volunteer aid in time of war to the sick and wounded of the armed forces, in accordance with the spirit and conditions of: (A) the conference of Geneva of October, 1863; (B) the treaties of the Red Cross, or the treaties of Geneva, of August 22, 1864, July 27, 1929, and August 12, 1949, to which the United States of America has given its adhesion; and (C) any other treaty, convention, or protocol similar in purpose to which the United States of America has given or may give its adhesion;

(2) in carrying out the purposes described in clause (1) of this section, to perform all the duties devolved on a national society by each nation that has acceded to any of those treaties, conventions, or protocols; (3) to act in matters of voluntary relief and in accordance with the military authorities as a medium of communication between the people of the United States and the armed forces of the United States and to act in those matters between similar national societies of governments of other countries through the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Government, the people, and the armed forces of the United States

The problem is that sure we can donate to other organizations but the Red Cross still is in a way a representive of America. And if they are so bad at delivering aid to Haiti; I wonder how effective they are at their other duties. I wonder if congress can revoke their charter? Or force reform? But that seems like an almost impossible task.

[1] http://www.redcross.org/images/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m4...

1 comments

Given their brand recognition status, any attempts by Congress to revoke their charter would be a career-ending move for the politicians involved.
It could happen, it just couldn't come out of the blue. Someone would probably need to pay for a nation-wide awareness campaign (the irony) about the evils of corrupt charities such as The Red Cross or Susan G Komen.
What's up with Komen? I realize I could google it, forgive me, but it sounds like you're in a position to give me a quick precis =)
They actually only spend about 20% of their revenues on breast cancer research. They spend a lot of their money, about 40% of revenue, on "awareness companies" which have dubious real-world effectiveness, and can be considered a clever way for them to market themselves and fundraise without actually having to report it as such (they spend 10% on fundraising to begin with).

They're also very litigious. Of course they need to protect their brand, but in a lot of cases they are pretty objectively the bad guys. They have taken legal action against other orgs/charities using "for the cure" in their names, they've taken action against orgs/charities using "cure" and pink together.

In general I think they are more focused on self-perpetuation than curing cancer. There's a lot of reading material on how some of their corporate partnerships have been deceptive in the sense that Susan G Komen received very little directly financially, and took the opportunity as a chance to market themselves instead.

Their CEO and upper management do make a lot of money, but I don't think it's out of line for an organization their size. It's still a matter of controversy though.

They probably also haven't fully recovered from their brief attempt in 2011-2012 to stop working with Planned Parenthood [1][2], which is where a large number of women get medical care such as breast exams and cancer screenings. They had a huge drop in donations following that debacle.

For the curious, Karen Handel (now R-GA6) is believed to have been the driving force behind that.

[1] https://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/11/09/giving/komen-foundatio...

[2] http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-susan-g-kom...

They get a lot of criticism for (among other things) "pink washing" breast cancer, more of their funds are spent on "raising awareness" than actual scientific research, and having corporate sponsors that sell potentially cancerogenic products.

There's a documentary about it called Pink Ribbons, Inc.

I also heard someone once criticize them for supporting anti-choice politicians but I don't know how true that is.

Komen is very litigious when it comes to other non-profits using the color pink in their breast cancer awareness campaigns. They also pay their leadership a ridiculous amount of money but I'm not sure how it compares to other execs of non-profits
Their profile on charitynavigator.org is pretty benign:

https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summar...

They got involved in a political fight involving Planned Parenthood:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_G._Komen_for_the_Cure#Re...

There are many arrows in the quiver that an enterprising politician can use to hold an errant organization to account (it's very difficult to be against holding powerful organizations to account, regardless of the actual merits of the action). They could propose amending the charter, simply choke off funding or insisting that they submit to a thorough audit by some federal government office (for which read: do what we tell you to, or have all your dirty laundry aired on cable news).
If there is anything I would like to see my taxes used for that would be it.