[Sans-Culotte]

Yes - I remember the stories about the Red Cross taking a good percentage of disaster relief donations and putting them aside for use for later operations. They got a lot of flack for this, but I don’t know if they changed their policies.

I do not think they have changed. I logged onto their site to make a contribution, and did not see a specific Haiti donation option. They had one for "disasters, such as the Haiti earthquake", but the implication was that you are donating to a general fund that may or may not help Haiti.

[mpackard]

I believe that you can specify which of the disasters you want it to go for but the fact that they use the money for general operations didn’t matter a BIT to me when they were here helping in the aftermath of Katrina. When you need them they are there and that meant a lot to a lot of us.
I agree, though, that the Salvation Army is the best of the best. I just found this to be very easy and convenient.