In Search Of The Red Cross' $500 Million In Haiti Relief

NPR ^

[Freedom56v2]

And that’s just the Red Cross.

There’s over $10 BILLION in donations that have never been put to use to rebuild Haiti.

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Wow, really something isn’t it ;(

[Freedom56v2]

Plenty of other groups where I know money is being spent to directly help people who really need it.

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If you have done some research, please share the “good” trustworthy organizations. I am always looking for some :)

[Freedom56v2]

The only charity I give to is the Salvation Army. It’s the only one where the leadership isn’t getting high six-figure salaries and 90% or more of the money they raise actuially goes to help people.

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Good point!

[Grams A]

We don’t donate to any groups regularly except for the Salvation Army and then only to the local group. When we had the flood damage in parts of Houston our women’s Bible study group collected donations and sent them to one of the local churches in the area that not only was helping those who had to leave their homes but also to help with repairs to their church. When West, Texas, had an explosion the school library was reduced to rubble and so we gathered up lots and lots of books for them.

Our contributions as a family and to groups are generally special and specific need oriented. The one exception we do make to “no large groups” is to Special Olympics. We just do not trust groups where there is no stated specific immediate need.

[kingu]

Donate to the Salvation Army. 90%+ of your contributions will make it to intended recipients.

And in three years when their conversion is complete, do you have the next organization to donate to? Or shall we simply fix those who are broken?

[vette6387]

Go take a look at the compensation for “charity officials.” The SA is at the top of the list. I think their overall leader gets something on the order of $11,000 a year. Then go look at Goodwill, Red Cross and the United Way. Their top people get high six-figure salaries plus large expense accounts, and they deliver far less money to help people.

[Oatka]

Haiti is a "developing country" like one of the Walking Dead is "getting better." Poor Haiti has been and probably will always be a doomed pest hole like most of the Third World.

I was down there ca 1952, courtesy of the USN. We were on maneuvers and pulled into Port-au-Prince for a day. I had mess cook duty then and part of my job was to unload our garbage to the bumboats alongside.

I was on a sub, so we were pretty close to the guys in the boats. Our "garbage" was actually fresh dish scrapings from a recent mess, no more than an hour old.

I remember that we had fried chicken, with desert being those slabs of multi-colored ice cream is a little waxed paper wrapper. I had just retrieved a bin that I had lowered into the boat and was lowering it below deck when a shipmate said, "Geez, will you look at that."

I glanced down and saw one guy pawing through the chicken bones, selecting one that had a scrap of meat on it and began chowing down. The other guy was busy licking those ice cream wrappers. As an 18-year-old brought up in NYC, I thought I had seen poor people, but this was a watershed for me.

Later on, when we were trading with the locals at the dock for hand-made cigar/cigarette boxes, I saw our electricians trading their ragged denims for some goods. Having their denims eaten up with battery acid, they always got a quarterly free allotment, and they were trading stuff off that looked like the only thing remaining was the waistband, inseams and cuffs - and getting trades for them. It was one Helluva education, which made this teen really appreciate what America had to offer.