Strange

Red Cross Faces $200 million Deficit, Layoffs

by Rob Walker | January 17, 2008 at 09:33 am

2546 views | 2 Recommendations | 7 comments

Apparently the lack of any high profile disasters has dropped the amount of contributions the Red Cross normally receives, and they are being forced to lay off 1,000 employees. They face a budget deficit of $200 million this year.

The national chapter of the American Red Cross is facing a budget deficit of $200 million. About a thousand employees in the national headquarters are being laid off to help stem the red ink.

Kay Wilkins with the Louisiana Red Cross says that although the national chapter is laying off a thousand people, locally there shouldn't be much impact.

"We're still working very heavily with hurricane recovery," said Wilkins. "We're keeping the case workers that we've had the last couple of years."

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Rob Peters

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 13:39 on January 17th, 2008

I didn't know about this, thanks for the post.

danophoto

at 15:26 on January 17th, 2008

Red Cross Bus from WW2 now well preserved at Froslev (former German Prisoner of War Camp) in Denmark
This old Volvo manufactured bus delivered Red Cross parcels & mail to the Prisoners during the war.

danophoto has contributed a photo to this story.

René

at 10:04 on January 18th, 2008

Salvation Army and locals beat the Red Cross to help Katrina victims, as seen on national media. That couldn't have had an imapct, could it?

ShadowPup (not verified)

at 05:06 on May 8th, 2009

I've done volunteer work for my local Red Cross Chapter and I must say the Salvation Army doesn't provide half the support to the community that the Red Cross does.

Every chapter of Red Cross is different. I know my local chapter provides support to families year round when there are house fires, they provide classes to teach CPR, health, and water safety, the workers at the Red Cross are required to volunteer and manage the shelters when shelters are opened because of hurricanes, in the past they have taught HIV/AIDS awareness in local middle and high schools, and that's only to name a few. The amount of service they provide to the community is a great deal compared to other organizations.

catfivey

at 12:30 on January 18th, 2008

Timaru Red Cross Search & Rescue volunteers engaged in 2007 Harris Trophy SAR competition, Canterbury, NZ. The competition is a means to train and upskill SAR teams in the South Island.

catfivey has contributed a photo to this story.

2tellthetruth

at 06:12 on January 21st, 2008

What the real issue here is poor management. NHQ hosts an incredible number of HIGH paid "leaders" who have no idea how to run an organization. Their salaries are sometimes even more then those that are similar in the for profit sector. For every paid staff, who is generally incredibly underpaid, there is four managers that are overpaid. This coupled with the fact that they constantly broker high money contracts with vendors that result in absolutely nothing for their constituents, are a cause of hemorrhaging of money. They have gone out to companies such as CSC and Verizon, and given them big money contracts that have caused either more money to be spent or no results at all. They also have a blood unit that is constantly running in a deficit, taking from the corporate money pool, and say they are going to do something and don’t. A lot of similarities can be made to Salvation Army, especially with the high paid management aspect. If the public really knew what went on behind the doors of NHQ, they wouldn’t be able to get 2.2 dollars, let alone 2.2 million!!!