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In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief
- sul4bh 11y agoThis makes me think if they will repeat this all over again in Nepal.
- jacquesm 11y agoI stopped giving to 'big charities' twenty years ago and since then have only helped people locally where I can see what happens to the money. That's a real pity because of course on a relative scale those are probably much less in need than the people in Haiti (and Nepal and other areas devastated by natural disasters). But the red cross - once a paragon of virtue - and a number of other big time charities that were very successful at raising capital but extremely poor at spending it well - if at all - except on themselves are directly to blame for this and I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only person that feels that way. They'll never get another cent out of me until at least one of their large scale disaster responses works out well. If they can't spend a few million in a direct, useful and efficient way then I don't see how they could spend orders of magnitude more. Governments are similarly inept at spending their money efficiently (well, maybe not quite this inept but there is plenty of incompetence there too), but we can't avoid paying into the tax coffers and where applicable we do get roads, healthcare, education, national defence, a police force and social security in return. Because of the total lack of end-to-end accountability with organizations like the red cross and others like it there is nothing to stop them from squandering what they rake in. It would be a lot more efficient to mail an envelope with cash to a random address in a disaster area than it is to expect these organizations to make a go of it. They really ought to be ashamed of themselves rather than belligerently defensive such as illustrated in the article. Security situation indeed, I think he meant 'job security'.
- egonschiele 11y agoI appreciate this viewpoint, and maybe you have made charity a priority in your life. I know that if I don't set up some on-going donation, I'm just not going to do it. So I have a monthly donation set up for small, local organizations. For example, I volunteered a few times with the SF Bike Coalition and really liked them, and now they get my money :)
- RobertoG 11y agoMaybe is time for them to modernize of close. I think that Internet make possible new models of charities. A donation can be, at the same time, not local and very personalized. I would like to recommend watsi: https://watsi.org/ https://watsi.org/ You can donate to concrete people and, they give you an accurate report, after the fact, of what happened. I think we need more charities like them. Maybe something with education? Disclaimer: I'm not related except as a donator.
- maxerickson 11y agoI wonder what it would take to close down the ARC, it is chartered by the US government as a "Treaty Obligation Organization": https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/36/subtitle-III https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/36/subtitle-III
- duaneb 11y agoI don't think that would scale to disaster relief. You need to organize people on the ground and deal with problems.
- TylerE 11y agoMore importantly you need to organize WELL in advance, before the specific need is known. If you wait until the hurricane actually HITS, you'll be weeks late getting shelter, food, etc, inbound. That stuff needs to be bought and warehoused in advance.
- TeMPOraL 11y agoStuff can always be shipped from other parts of the world on the moment's notice if you have enough cash ready, so you don't necessarily need to stockpile it on site before anything happens. But what you can't really buy quickly is trained personnel that can organize relief works on site - this alone justifies having them as a standing organization.
- TylerE 11y ago
- swombat 11y agoThere are some large-scale charities which I think do use the money well. For example, I felt no hesitation in donating to Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) at the beginning of the Ebola outbreak, when they were the only ones with boots on the ground actually helping people.
- icc97 11y agoI was always impressed by them too. They used to display the amount of administration costs on the homepage of their website. IIRC it was 10% then and it's under 20% now [1], but it's still a very good figure and they're open about it: > More than 80 per cent of the money you donate goes directly to our humanitarian activities. [1]: http://www.msf.org/donate http://www.msf.org/donate
- Brakenshire 11y ago> Governments are similarly inept at spending their money efficiently ... [big charities] will never get another cent out of me until at least one of their large scale disaster responses works out well...Because of the total lack of end-to-end accountability with organizations like the red cross... Your post is ideological - sweeping application of game-theory style logic, but without the evidence to suggest that the logic applies to this case. 1) 'Governments are similarly inept at spending their money efficiently' is overly simplified. The most obvious counter-example is that the US and the UK spend the same amount of tax money as a percentage of GDP on healthcare; the former gets limited programs covering a minority of the population, the latter gets a universal health service (albeit obviously with limitations). 2) On what basis do you say that no large scale NGO disaster responses work out well? I would say that is an incredibly difficult conclusion to draw.
- taki1 11y agoHis post isn't ideological. Yours is.
- Brakenshire 11y agoI offer one empirical counter-example - with direct reference to easily verifiable evidence (public expenditure on healthcare as a percentage of GDP, and the differences between the levels of coverage of Medicare, Medicaid, and the NHS) - and then one request for proof, and not much else.
- badsock 11y agoOne of jacquesm's central assertions is extremely broad: governments are inept at spending money. No qualifications. Brakenshire's contention is that there is clearly a broad spectrum of efficiencies (and offers an empirical example), which is a call for a more nuanced view of things. I think you may need to revisit your definition of ideological.
- jacquesm 11y ago> One of jacquesm's central assertions is extremely broad: governments are inept at spending money. Yep. > No qualifications. Indeed. I've seen enough of government projects on all levels (Municipal, Provincial, Country and European) to know this to be factually true and if you would so much as read the freely available news sources you'd probably agree with that unqualified statement. Government projects that are on-time, within the budget, useful and good value for the money spent are very rare. > Brakenshire's contention is that there is clearly a broad spectrum of efficiencies (and offers an empirical example), which is a call for a more nuanced view of things. There is indeed a broad spectrum of efficiencies, though I'd rather re-word that as 'there is a broad spectrum of in-efficiencies', since efficient would indicate something close to the theoretically achievable. Really, I don't know what your experience is but I've been fairly interested in the machinations of the various governments that I've found myself a subject of over my life-time to date and efficient is just about the last term that I would use to describe any of them, and most of the literature seems to agree with that.
- bargl 11y agoI have found similar hardships in finding a large group that I can trust. I've found that with Partners in Health, but I also think small amounts to people to build local communities is one of the best ways to make changes. I think this is a great tool for doing that in places that might need it more then my local community here in the US. http://www.kiva.org/ http://www.kiva.org/
- SloopJon 11y agoI was upset to hear that nearly $30 million of the tsunami relief money ended up subsidizing the Japanese whaling fleet. (Heard that on Whale Wars, so I'm not 100% sure it's true.)
- xaqfox 11y agoIt's not that hard of a connection to make when Extremist Logic is used: Use relief money to clean up water and coastal fishing towns. Whales like to live in water and fishermen like to live in fishing towns. Therefore, relief money subsidized the Japanese whaling fleet.
- reagency 11y ago$30M is what Percentage?
- pvaldes 11y agoNot much probably. Practically al fishermen's fleet was wipped and aquaculture where also damaged. Luckily, most yellowtail production was sold in the winter market a few weeks before, so seafarmers have enough money in the bank to start again. Most whalers were probably offshore when the tsunami striked thus not so damaged. I'll bet that this $30M where for families that lost their relatives or houses, instead to buy better whalers, but i'm just guessing...
- astrofinch 11y ago>It would be a lot more efficient to mail an envelope with cash to a random address in a disaster area than it is to expect these organizations to make a go of it. Interesting that you mention that. Charity evaluator Givewell has evaluated hundreds of charities based on whether they actually deliver results for your money. One of their top rated organizations is GiveDirectly, which does almost exactly what you describe. Here's their evaluation page for it: http://www.givewell.org/international/top-charities/give-directly http://www.givewell.org/international/top-charities/give-dir... Givewell is a bit bearish on disaster giving, by the way. See #6 in this list: http://blog.givewell.org/2013/11/12/6-tips-on-disaster-relief-giving/ http://blog.givewell.org/2013/11/12/6-tips-on-disaster-relie... If you're interested in this sort of thing, you might look in to the Effective Altruism movement, which I consider myself a part of: http://www.effectivealtruism.org/ http://www.effectivealtruism.org/
- reagency 11y agoAnd yet you probably don't live anywhere near the people whone need charity the most, so you can't give effectovely locally. Try givewell.org
- cletus 11y agoSadly this kind of mismanagement and questionable decision-making isn't new [1] [2] [3]. It really seems like a lot of big charities are simply in the business of raising money rather than helping people. One wonders how that money is actually spent. It seems very much like good local charities are a far better conduit for charitable gifts. [1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Red_Cross#September_11_controversy http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Red_Cross#September_... [2] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/red-faces-at-the-red-cross/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/red-faces-at-the-red-cross/ [3] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-09-28-katrina-red-cross_x.htm http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-09-28-katrin...
- avar 11y agoTo add to that, another article from NPR about Red Cross mismanagement after Hurricane Sandy: http://www.npr.org/2014/10/29/359365276/on-superstorm-sandy-anniversary-red-cross-under-scrutiny http://www.npr.org/2014/10/29/359365276/on-superstorm-sandy-...
- Matth3wMarshall 11y agocletus, we're New Story (YC S15 nonprofit) - http://newstorycharity.org http://newstorycharity.org We had similar experiences to you in the past, where we would donate to a large org and NEVER know where I money went or who it helped. So, we're on a mission to change charity by showing our donors EXACT where their money goes - here's an example: http://newstorycharity.org/maria-rose http://newstorycharity.org/maria-rose I'd love your thoughts!
- mod 11y agoThis organization is doing good work in Haiti, check it out: http://mohhaiti.org/ http://mohhaiti.org/ They get a stellar rating; to my recollection, 96% of donated funds go to the cause (4% overhead). They're an overtly Christian organization, which may or may not be your thing. But they're doing good work. Disclaimer: A company I worked for did some work for them a couple of years ago. I'm no longer affiliated in any way.
- mckoss 11y agoI don't agree that the modern Red Cross has anything to do with Christianity. I've never heard of them evangelizing or take any position on religion. Why do you think that?
- bretthagler 11y agoHey - I'm the CEO at http://newstorycharity.org http://newstorycharity.org - we crowdfund houses in Haiti and give 100% of donations to home construction. We actually partner with MOH - they are great. Where 100% of your donations go: (1)http://newstorycharity.org/roseline http://newstorycharity.org/roseline *be sure to click on the home cost breakdown. The 33 families we've funded in 6 months: (2) http://newstorycharity.org/families-page#funded-families http://newstorycharity.org/families-page#funded-families Example of a video every donor gets: (3) http://newstorycharity.org/maria-rose http://newstorycharity.org/maria-rose
- meesterdude 11y agoI'm building an app that utilizes people giving to charities - red cross seemed like an obvious choice to include, but now there's no way. This has been helpful in sleuthing out reputable charities: http://www.charitynavigator.org/ http://www.charitynavigator.org/
- mckoss 11y agoI would not let a single news story exclude you from including them. I've seen too many cases where journalists completely botch an investigative story due to biased sources and their own ignorance. I personally would like to see the Red Cross's response.
- meesterdude 11y agoFWIW, they have something of a history if I recall; i only recently found out a few days ago, really.
- mckoss 11y agoFrom my memory, they had a reputation for bait and switch - raising money during a disaster, but spending it elsewhere. I think they cleaned that up, including a change in leadership. This article is new in claiming innefectiveness at usefully spending money to help disaster victims. I would love to see a detailed audit.
- TylerE 11y agoIt's not that they are duplicitous really - it's that stockpiling large amounts of supplies has a leadtime measured in months. Money you give today can't buy tents in Haiti tomorrow - those have to be ordered, manufactured, shipped...
- rosser 11y agoI'm sorry, but tents do not have a lead time of five years.
- Gupie 11y ago$500M sound like a large sum. It is if that is you personal wealth. However for Haiti with a population of over 10M it is only $50 per head. According to the article the Red Cross built shelters for 130,000 people. The would be $384 per shelter if that was all the Red Cross did. But they also fed people, provided clean water, medical aid... It is easy to attack big charities. You get support from people who feel guilty for being mean bastards, for people who don't like foreign organisations, from big business who want to profit out of natural disasters...
- jbob2000 11y agoYou didn't read the article did you...
- cmiles74 11y agoThe article later clarifies that the Red Cross did not, in fact, build shelters for 130,000 people. According to the Red Cross' documentation, many of those people attended a seminar on home repair or were provided temporary shelters. This is not the first time the Red Cross has had problems aseembling or executing a cohesive plan. Indeed, this seems to be a problem all of these large aid organization suffer.
- lloydde 11y agoI think I agree with the sentiment, but your per shelter example is a poor one, it should be "per person sheltered". And any examples would benefit from comparisons to regional costs.
- tptacek 11y agoIt's $166/head counting every person in the area affected by the earthquake, and $2000/house counting all the houses destroyed by the earthquake. Most Haitians did not lose their homes to the quake.
- mckoss 11y agoCan $2,000 build a whole house? Even in Haiti? I would think 10x that for anything we would call a "house". Its not surprising there is a vast unmet need in Haiti given its poverty and the scale of the disaster.
- 88e282102ae2e5b 11y agoTheir defense is pretty weak. Essentially they're claiming the reason houses didn't get built was because they didn't know how to build them, or that there were land disputes. All of which are true. But that should have prevented them from spending any significant amount of money.
- droithomme 11y agoThe article also notes that other charities that said they would build houses were able to build thousands of houses. This suggests the land disputes claim was a made up excuse since other charities don't mention this, they just show the houses they built. The temporary shelters shown are interesting. They are made with a few 2x4s as rafters, some tin panel roof, and press board on the outside. No water, toilet, etc. Appears to be under $500 in materials per family of several people per shelter. Press board of course in a humid rainy environment will disintegrate in a couple years, which is what happened. I wonder how many of these particular shelters can be verified that they built.
- pvaldes 11y agoThe sad facts is that you can spend lots of money, don't do nothing bad... and don't achieve nothing. Not always your fault. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/23507559/ns/world_news-americas/t/haiti-goes-hungry-tons-food-rot-ports/#.VXHXsyRsvrc http://www.nbcnews.com/id/23507559/ns/world_news-americas/t/... "I'd have rather thrown the aid in the water, said Michaud. The Canadian Embassy intervened and the $10.000 'custom fee' demanded by port autorities was later waived". http://thehaitianblogger.blogspot.com.es/2008/12/food-donation-rot-in-storage-in-new.html http://thehaitianblogger.blogspot.com.es/2008/12/food-donati... "Large tracts of land, including former sugar plantations are in the hands of a few elite families. Much of the rest is divided into small plots for farming" http://www.3news.co.nz/world/two-months-on-haiti-rots-as-rains-threaten-2010031310#ixzz3cD1q54JB http://www.3news.co.nz/world/two-months-on-haiti-rots-as-rai...
- avar 11y agoThe biggest revelation to me in that article, which I feel should be highlighted more, is that the Red Cross provides almost zero information about how it spends its money. It refuses to provide more than very vague information about how the money was spent in Haiti (information like "35% of $488 million on shelters"), with no specific details about what projects they spent the money on, how those projects went etc. When the author challenged the general counsel of the Red Cross to provide more detailed information ("because clearly you must have it") he just gave her some evasive boilerplate spiel about having provided the summary information he'd provided already. How can anyone donate to a charity that's so stunningly opaque about how it spends its money?
- nodata 11y ago> the Red Cross provides almost zero information about how it spends its money. If that is true, how can Charity Navigator rate it 80.5/100? http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3277 http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary...
- avar 11y agoI don't know, perhaps they're particularly opaque about Haiti or other "big" disaster relief efforts, or perhaps other charities are just as bad. I'm just summarizing what I took from the article, in particular skip ahead to around 4m50s. The audio is much clearer than the transcript on this issue.
- zabuni 11y agoThe article basically implies they use exceedingly broad categories, and don't exactly characterize everything the way they should. See also this Propublical article: https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-half-a-billion-dollars-for-haiti-and-built-6-homes https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-... There's a chart half way through that shows, by NPR and Propublica's estimates that instead of 90% spent on actual charity, they only spend 60%. This would tank their rankings in places like Charity Navigator and Givewell. So the short answer to your question, is that they are vague as hell about how they spend the money, and they probably cook the books.
- wahsd 11y agoWait. Didn't VICE do an excellent expose on this very topic, relief capitalism? edit: they call it disaster capitalism, but relief capitalism is also a real thing. Pretty sure it's not the full episode, but this is a summary of the episode. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNM4kEUEcp8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNM4kEUEcp8 America's dirty little secret is that the majority of our "aid" is really not aid at all an not really meant for aiding and assisting. This is not really a new thing. It's actually a very old and disastrous thing.
- lucb1e 11y agoTL;DR (the informational bits): > First the Red Cross took a customary administrative cut, then the charities that received the money took their own fees. And then, according to the Red Cross' records, the charity took out an additional amount to pay for what it calls the "program costs incurred in managing" these third-party projects. > In one of the programs reviewed by NPR and ProPublica, these costs ate up a third of the money that was supposed to help Haitians. [...] > said that a fifth of the money the charity raised would go to "provide tens of thousands of people with permanent homes ... where we develop brand-new communities ... including water and sanitation." > The charity built six permanent homes and, according to their own account, no new communities. [...] > the project manager [...] was entitled to allowances for housing, food and other expenses, home leave trips, R&R four times a year, and relocation expenses. In all, including salary, it added up to $140,000. --- These are the only factual bits I can find. I'm not saying the rest is untrue, but they include statements from locals who "cannot see that $24 million has been spent here," whatever that means. Another example is where it says "first, the plan was to build houses," then going on to describe that people are still living in tents. But how many people live in tents? What percentage? How many houses were actually built? Or did they build 10 villas and leave the rest in tents? There is no real information that I can find. A bit further on, it does include this: > The original plan was to build 700 new homes with living rooms and bathrooms. The Red Cross says it ran into problems acquiring land rights. ... so then out of the 700, how many were built? It doesn't say anything about that.
- snowpanda 11y ago> Or did they build 10 villas and leave the rest in tents? I think they did build 10 villas, just not in Haiti. It's very sad to read all of this. (great TL;DR by the way, thank you).
- pmorici 11y agoI think the other issue which is buried in the article is they couldn't get the rights to build on the land. That still begs the question of where all the money went but sounds like there is enough blame to go around.
- justinpropub 11y ago
- ck2 11y agoRed Cross is notoriously corrupt, yet after every disaster they get so much free publicity.
- pvaldes 11y agoHave you any proof of this?
- dsugarman 11y agoDoes anyone know anything about the effectiveness of other Haiti efforts like Mercy Corps?
- bretthagler 11y agoHey - the CEO of http://newstorycharity.org http://newstorycharity.org (YC S15), we fund houses in Haiti and are radically transparent and accountable. See where 100% of donations go: (1)http://newstorycharity.org/roseline http://newstorycharity.org/roseline *be sure to click on the home cost breakdown. The 33 families we've funded in 6 months: (2) http://newstorycharity.org/families-page#funded-families http://newstorycharity.org/families-page#funded-families Example of a video every donor gets: (3) http://newstorycharity.org/maria-rose http://newstorycharity.org/maria-rose Would love to hear your thoughts/feedback! - brett
- droithomme 11y agoThis looks very interesting. So donors can pick a family and fund a house directly. Your spreadsheet shows a total building cost of about $6000 including everything and the houses are clearly not pressboard shacks. Is your agency having problems dealing with title claims like the Red Cross is claiming is the issue that prevented them from fulfilling any of their promises to build? Also, another source claims that the Red Cross only spent $400 on each of the 6 permanent homes they managed to build (http://hotesfoundation.org/500-million-for-6-shacks-in-haiti-a-drop-in-the-bucket-of-red-cross-donation-abuses/ http://hotesfoundation.org/500-million-for-6-shacks-in-haiti...). Since you've been down there and are involved with building I wonder if you happen to have seen the 6 permanent $400 Red Cross homes? What are they like? I wasn't able to find photos of those, only of the temporary shelters made of press board, and the tents.
- bretthagler 11y agoYes exactly! re: So donors can pick a family and fund a house directly. We haven't seen those Red Cross homes, but we are focused on building sustainable homes that will last for decades. Much different than quick temporary aid.
- vittore 11y agoWe need totally transparent charities across the globe. A lot of my friend here in US prefer to support small local charities that they exactly know how money are going to be spent, even more, they can donate time and participate in those activities. Unfortunately for the charities of a large scale other concerns comes to play, especially here in US - taxes.
- chkuendig 11y agoI just finished reading The Big Truck That Went By [1] by Jonathan Katz. It's an amazing account on what happened after the earthquake has hit and why most development help didn't have the impact we had hoped for. One of the reason he touches is that emergency relief groups like the Red Cross (and other, e.g. MSF) aren't setup to do the nation-building Haiti actually needed, but for more rapid and short term support as is needed in war zones, refugee camps or rural disaster areas (tents, water, food etc.). I can only recommend the book. I found it through his article on the NYTimes [2] which touches most points. Most embarrassing for a journalist, they were wrong in ways that would have immediately been made clear had we taken the time to ask some basic questions. Food and water, for example. When I was in Haiti two years later, to research the relief effort for a book, I was shocked to discover that no one could tell me with any precision if there was ever a food or water shortage in the first place. No one among the responders had even contacted the Coordination Nationale de la Sécurité Alimentaire — the Haitian government agency overseeing food security — to find out what might be needed. Indeed, earthquakes tend to inflict the worst damage on cities, not farms — especially in countries that already have limited infrastructure — and Haiti’s urban areas didn’t have any sewers or piped drinking water to begin with. People indeed lost their homes and incomes, and markets closed. But the World Food Program had enough supplies in its Port-au-Prince warehouses — which survived the quake — to feed 300,000 people one full meal for three weeks. There was no acute food or malnutrition crisis after the quake; that much we know. But it seems very likely that the city could have avoided one even without the frenzied aid push. [1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Big-Truck-That-Went-ebook/dp/B009OZN6GM http://www.amazon.com/The-Big-Truck-That-Went-ebook/dp/B009O... [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/28/magazine/how-not-to-report-on-an-earthquake.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/28/magazine/how-not-to-report...
- unics 11y agoSome good points that I've never considered. It seems some basic needs aren't always food, clothing, shelter in all disasters. Communication is key and clearly lacking in Haiti's case.
- geetee 11y agoVICE on HBO did a good piece on the failure of USAID in Haiti: https://nonprofitquarterly.org/policysocial-context/26018-hbo-to-air-vice-s-haitian-money-pit-tonight-and-it-is-worth-watching.html https://nonprofitquarterly.org/policysocial-context/26018-hb...
- reagency 11y agoUSAID! Thy funneled $billions to Russian oligarchs in the 1990s! Harvard University faculty ran that shitshow.
- swframe 11y agoAt the end of the story, they mentioned that local Haitian organizations were building lots of homes. It was also mentioned that there is lots of money still unspent. It seems that the Red Cross (or the US Gov) just needs to fund those organizations with a proven track record. Sometimes I think news organizations are (unintentionally) exacerbating the root cause of these problems. They report on incompetence but don't report on how the public can fix it. I don't think the Red Cross will fix it without public pressure. It leaves the audience with a sense of helplessness that leads to cynicism and apathy. It would be better to end the story with suggestions on how the average citizen can fix these issues.
- bargl 11y agoOH man this infuriates me. I’ve spent time volunteering in two different locations (Bolivia and Haiti), both were great experiences for me, but I only feel that my time in Bolivia really benifited the people there in the long term. I spent about three months on the ground in Haiti after the earthquake. I wasn’t a first responder or anything, I actually arrived 6 months after the earthquake, so most of the emergency relief was over. I left during some unrest and was told not to return by the nuns there for fear of my safety. I regret not going back to this day. After that I went to Bolivia for 6 months. There I was a teacher and mentor to some of the more rural communities. Again, both were great experiences but we actually helped in the Bolivian community in a long term manner, where as in Haiti, we didn’t really help anyone, we just floundered like fish out of water. Which is what I think most people were doing. The reason I think this was the case for most NGOs in Haiti is because of the bias that is expressed in the article. NGOs come to work on the Haitians not with them. I was there to sell them a bill of goos, and not to ask what they needed. This was made very clear by one example. I was shown a “groundbreaking” new technology, where you could assemble a house from simple materials made of compressed wood that would stand up to hurricane force winds. The issue is that it wasn’t something the Haitian people wanted to use. When we showed it to them they seemed baffled as to how this was a permanent house. They all aspire to the same things we do, that is a solid 4 walls and roof over our heads, not just temporary shelter. The shelters ended up being a dead end project that floundered because we couldn’t get Haitian support, and I left feeling that I had been more a burden then a support for my friends in Haiti. In contrast my time in Bolivia was focused and intense. We were working for the nuns in Bolivia, not on them. The goal of this project was to build up a school on the shoulders of American volunteers and then leave the community when it was stable, and when the nuns said they didn’t need us anymore. In the beginning of the program the volunteers taught core math and science courses and they were integral to the operation of the school. 10 years later (during my time there) we taught basic English classes and visited the neighboring communities. It was rewarding work, but we could see that soon they would no longer need volunteers. After about 20 years of volunteers in this community the school was self-sufficient and the nuns let us know that they didn’t need any more volunteers. The main difference between our success in Bolivia and relative failure in Haiti was customer buy in. In Haiti we were working on the people not for them. The trust (as stated in the article) wasn’t there and the Haitian people were not leading the effort. This led to some very beautifully created architecture that the people didn’t want to live in. In my opinion the goal of any NGO should be to build self-sufficiency in a community so that it can stand on its own. The Red Cross didn’t do that. There are organizations out there that have (even in Haiti) if you’d like some references on how to donate to a meaningful charity read Mountains Beyond Mountains and help Paul Farmer out, or just donate to Partners in Health. Note: I have no affiliation with him or his foundation. I do have more anecdotes, but I’ll leave it at that for now. Edit: Re-Wrote the whole thing. Thank you nate_meurer, I hope this is clearer, if not please let me know where I can clean it up and I’ll try to get it right. The original in comments in my response to nate_meurer.
- mason240 11y agoThere is a good analysis of this on skeptics stackexchange. http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/27927/has-the-red-cross-raised-half-a-billion-dollars-for-haiti-to-build-6-houses http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/27927/has-the-re... >TLDR: The article has accidentally or deliberately confused the earthquake relief project with the much smaller neighborhood renewal project, and attacked them both for not doing things they weren't intended to do. The Red Cross did much more in Haiti than build six houses.
- NotOscarWilde 11y agoAlready in the TLDR there is a figure of speech used to attack a point: "accidentally or deliberately". In neutral speech, there is no need to bring that up, as everything is either accidental or deliberate. Yet people use this to hint at the "deliberate" part of the phrase while having the other part in there for deniability.
- Crito 11y agoI disagree, I think people use it to emphasize the possibility that it was accidental. Without that phrase, such assertions tend to be interpreted with implicit "deliberately". > neutral speech Is not ideal or practical in the real world. It's a nice idea, but to best facilitate understanding we should recognize the realities (unfortunate or misguided as they may be) of how we actually use language. (If you really want to imply "deliberate", but want plausible deniability, then you just leave out the phrase entirely. If you don't say "accidentally or deliberately", people will infer "deliberately", but you never actually said that word and therefore you have deniability.)
- brianstorms 11y agoThis story reminded me of the Pink Ribbons [1] documentary, which exposes the money-making charities behind breast cancer. Worth finding and watching. [1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2035599/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2035599/
- pvaldes 11y ago"The original plan was to build 700 new homes with living rooms and bathrooms. The Red Cross says it ran into problems acquiring land rights. Their internal memos, show there were other serious problems, including multiple staffing changes and long bureaucratic delays. And then there was a period of almost a year when the whole project appears to have sat dormant." Haiti people was claimed as one of the worsts enemies of Haiti. A lot of projects were stopped for months by bureaucracy. Some volunteers even claimed to had been menaced with a trial if they dare to move a single rock blocking the street without papers (that often never arrived). Volunteers and doctors did what they can, and it was a lot (thousands or probably hundreds of expensive chirurgical interventions). Finally, tired to sit and wait for months, volunteers spend their last pennies and started returning to their homes and former lives. Other big disasters with hundreds of lifes in danger occur, and Haitians just lost traction and their opportunity to use all those talented people. Red Cross provides information about how spends the money and pass external audits from independent companies. Each year. In all countries. Local finances are published in red cross bulletins that are available each six months to all people supporting the red cross with their money or time. Maybe this periodist just didn't knew how to use google: http://www.redcross.org/images/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m43540127_2014_TheAmericanNationalRedCrossFS.PDF http://www.redcross.org/images/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m4... Or maybe some of the promised money from donors was just this, a nice promise, and now they need a scapegoat.
- shkkmo 11y agoI am sure there were lots of problems and issues providing relief in Haiti. The problem here is that the Red Cross seems to be dramatically misrepresenting how much they accomplished with the money they raised. >Maybe this periodist just didn't knew how to use google: Um... did you even read the article or were you too busy being smug?
- vasilipupkin 11y agoSorry for the plug - but that's why I invested in https://publicgood.com https://publicgood.com - I think they can make it easier to donate to more nimble, locally focused and potentially more effective organizations
- jonstokes 11y agoMy wife and I worked in some Red Cross shelters in Lake Charles, LA in the immediate aftermath of Katrina. I wrote a bit about what I was doing here: http://arstechnica.com/security/2005/10/disaster-livecd/ http://arstechnica.com/security/2005/10/disaster-livecd/ My take-away from that is that I would never, ever donate a dime to that organization. The people in the local chapters who were the first to respond immediately after the disaster were fantastic. But when the national org eventually came in (and brought layers of on-site bureaucracy with them) it was a train wreck, and they started throwing their weight around cluelessly and got in the way of everyone and everything. If the full-time, paid staff of the Red Cross had just left things entirely in the hands of the local volunteers and had stayed out of the area entirely, things would have gone much more smoothly. Private companies did so much more than many of the relief orgs. Sprint, for instance, gave us free event phones for the shelter residents to use to try to contact family. No worries about billing, or even if they'd get the phones back. Home Depot's efforts in the aftermath have been well-documented. And I believe it was IBM (my memory may be faulty) who donated thousands in computer equipment to the shelters where I was working, which the shelter residents used to track down friends and family who they'd been separated from by the storm. I don't know if I'll ever have another experience like talking to some lower-level person at a big company, telling them that I'm there from a Katrina shelter where I just showed up to volunteer and have no formal association with any org, then immediately being escalated all the way up the chain to someone who makes decisions and that person says, "just tell us what you need from us and we'll do it. Don't worry about any cost or billing issues. Tell us what and when and where." That was awesome. It was also a stark contrast, to be totally empowered by the likes of Sprint and IBM on the one hand, and then ignored and pushed aside by the Red Cross on the other. Pretty crazy. The Salvation Army was maybe the one aid org that had their act together. Red Cross national staff and FEMA were worthless. Anyway, I regret that I didn't write all this down after it happened. Between my wife and I there's a great book -- or at least a really long magazine article -- in there somewhere.
- _nedR 11y agoI find it interesting that your main complaint is that the red cross lets bureaucracy and red tape get in the way of actually helping people on the ground, while the article seems to complain about the lack of accountability and transparency from red cross (which would require some bureaucracy and red tape). Maybe the Red Cross has trouble reconciling these seemingly conflicting goals (in addition to their alleged lack of competence)?
- guelo 11y agoHere is the Red Cross's response, http://www.redcross.org/news/press-release/13-Facts-about-the-Red-Cross-Response-in-Haiti http://www.redcross.org/news/press-release/13-Facts-about-th...
- coldcode 11y agoAny charity that doesn't give you a detailed list of what the money was spent on shouldn't get your money.
- Matth3wMarshall 11y agocoldcode, we're New Story (YC S15 nonprofit) focused on crowd funding houses for homeless families living in danger around the world - http://newstorycharity.org http://newstorycharity.org We show each and ever donor a breakdown the home cost and then a video of the EXACT family you help - here's an example - http://newstorycharity.org/maria-rose http://newstorycharity.org/maria-rose I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback :)
- kamilszybalski 11y agoOne of the best and most transparent charities I've ever donated to - https://www.charitywater.org/ https://www.charitywater.org/ I heard the founder speak at a company event a while back and it's truly inspirational.
- kamilszybalski 11y agoOne of the best and most transparent charities I've ever donated to - https://www.charitywater.org/ https://www.charitywater.org/ I heard the founder speak at a company event a while back and it's truly inspirational.
- sehugg 11y agoWow .. could their PR be any more defensive? NPR and ProPublica were "creating ill will in the community, which may give rise to a security incident," the email says. "We will hold you and your news organizations fully responsible." No security incident happened — but residents did ask if they could keep the brochure.
- orbitingpluto 11y agoMy antecdote about corruption in Haiti. Went to a friend's wedding in 2007. One of the guests worked at CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency). I asked the guest as many questions as I could. There was a preliminary research trip before a Canadian official made her visit to Haiti. The purpose? To geolocate and photograph the facilities. And when I say facilities, think toilets. Making sure the white Canadian could poo-poo comfortably counted as aid. Sure Haiti is incredibly corrupt, I remember that one of the ex-president's (Not Aristide) was head of the local kidnapping ring in Port Au Prince. But that's just small stuff. America and Canada use Haiti like it's their own toilet and want it to remain that way, in spite of the intentions of a select few and the limited posturing to the contrary. One of the most disturbing things for me is to look at Hispaniola on Google Maps. The Dominican Replublic is lush and green. Haiti is a greyed out ####-hole. I could go on and on, but reading up on an actual humanitarian in the region, Dr Paul Farmer, and his publications is a good start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Farmer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Farmer
- pvaldes 11y ago> Making sure the white Canadian could poo-poo comfortably counted as aid. Well, yes of course, it is aid. And making sure also that this doctor can wash his hands before their next chirurgical intervention (is really so relevant to notice that is canadian, thus probably white?). Doctors also need to go to the bathroom (is not so easy if you are a woman). Or clean itselves of vomit and blood after a hard day. Somebody need to assure that the volunteers have their most basical needs covered and can focus all his precious skills in doing the job (instead to just get ill and totally useless just 24 hours after their arrival). To study first the access to clean water and a way to avoid faeces spreading all around your clinic area and contaminating hundreds of wounded people is not corruption at all. Is to invest wisely your resources.
- orbitingpluto 11y agoI'm going to counter with the fact that the CIDA worker thought that this was a complete waste of resources. Sending a team of people to look at how pretty the toilets are is ridiculous. If you can't see that, please don't oversee any charity money. And I never said it was a doctor. And it wasn't. Just an official taking a tour.
- carsonreinke 11y agoI always like to research a charity a bit, because of this fear. Charity Navigator is a good one: http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3277#.VXHAU-uuewA http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary...
- comboy 11y agoFor those wanting to help, I highly recommend Givewell[1]. I imagine many of HN readers are (were) also lesswrong readers. This article[2] gives you some insight how Givewell evaluates organizations that they support. [1] http://www.givewell.org/ http://www.givewell.org/ [2] http://lesswrong.com/lw/cbs/thoughts_on_the_singularity_institute_si/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/cbs/thoughts_on_the_singularity_inst...
- masters3d 11y agohttp://www.hotesfoundation.org/500-million-for-6-shacks-in-haiti-a-drop-in-the-bucket-of-red-cross-donation-abuses/ http://www.hotesfoundation.org/500-million-for-6-shacks-in-h...
- kyrre 11y agothis is the exact scenario in envision whenever someone asks for donations, which happened /a lot/ when i was living in London, where it appears to be a thriving "industry" imo, working for charitable organizations is unethical
- Matth3wMarshall 11y agokyrre, unfortunately the world of big NGOs and charity is broken. I think you'd also like the book - Confessions of an Economic Hitman A couple months ago 2 friends and I launched New Story (YC S15 nonprofit) http://newstorycharity.org http://newstorycharity.org Our mission to show donors EXACT what their money goes to funding (by showing a home breakdown costs) and EXACT who they help by showing donors a video of the family in their new home - here's an example http://newstorycharity.org/maria-rose http://newstorycharity.org/maria-rose
- CyberpunkDad 11y agoJust listened to the NPR piece the other day and it does really sound shady.
- xacaxulu 11y agoI've spent years working in sub-Saharan Africa with defense, security, oil firms etc. and have spent a fair amount of time interacting with non-profit, NGO, microfinance orgs. Not only do they operate with the weakest of reporting requirements, taxation burdens and investigatory/compliance statutes, but the people they employ are usually doing so out of a desire to help people, often taking seriously sub-standard salaries for similar work. So the top brass at these orgs are killing it and raking in money, while most of the grunt work is done by hapless bleeding hearts who are seriously underpaid for the work they do. It's a win at both ends for management.
- tertius 11y agoI find it interesting that no one here has mentioned the Clinton Foundation, they raised a LOT more money and we have the same problem. They did build a hotel though... And they're getting more involved in gold mining.
- jnbiche 11y agoJust think the impact that would have had if it had been divided up and given directly to each Haitian adult. The adult population of Haiti is roughly 6 million, so we're talking about almost $100 per adult Haitian. Roughly, it's about 1/8 of the per capita GDP of Haiti. Imagine what you could if you were a poor American and received 1/8 of the American per capita GDP after a disaster (~6000 USD). That's a new roof, or a replacement vehicle, etc. It's not life changing, but it would have been very significant, and massive in scale.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoMaybe not as much as you'd think. Haiti doesn't have goods for ready cash. Most of the relief issue was shipping goods into the country where needed.
- GFischer 11y agoBut maybe good ol' capitalism would have worked then, if many people had some income to spend, an enterprising importer could have shipped some stuff out of China or something :) . Relief can be very inefficient in those cases. I posted on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9666194 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9666194 that jbniche's theory seems to be supported by the studies in that article. Edit: I think a combination of both approaches might be needed. I'd really like to know what the Red Cross did and the effect it had, but we can't if they're being so opaque.
- notahacker 11y agoGood 'ol capitalism is more likely to operate the other way though: the since all my tenants/customers have significantly higher cash reserves than before and this village's supply chain and living options are actually even worse after the earthquake, I can put my prices up by even more way. A fair amount of GiveDirectly's recipients' success comes from it only being a fraction of people in the village that receive the funds
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- pumblechook 11y agoNPR is targeting ARC, but this is actually a bigger, more difficult problem for the charity industry than one organization not disclosing where it spends its money. I used to work for a large ($500 million+ annual revenue) NGO fundraising department, both in major gifts and direct response marketing (digital), and I have colleagues who now work for similar organizations (including ARC). We would all tell you that most organizations, even (maybe especially) the largest ones, are absolutely horrible at having any idea whatsoever of the impact of their programs. Even worse, the leadership in these organizations are ambivalent at best at assessing the impact. Why? Because organizations simply don't have much, if any, incentive to do so. And perhaps more shocking to me, the vast majority of donors don't care. Most people are content to give and reap the warm/fuzzy feeling they get, then not think about it again until year end when taxes are due. Simply put, most people treat giving like buying a product at the store: they hand over money in exchange for the warm and fuzzies. Transaction over. The people who actually demand some sort of accountability are a minority who are often treated as anti-charity, as in, "Why would we spend money on assessing impact when we can spend that money helping more people?". The result are token 'watch dog' groups like Charity Navigator that latch on to red herrings like 'efficiency' ratings which non-profits have learned to manipulate to the point that they are functionally useless. ARC is simply the product of a rotten system, and it is far from the only one. If you want to help cure this sickness, only give to organizations that can demonstrate the impact your dollars are having on the cause you care about. Ignore the so-called efficiency splits that say charity Y gives z% of your dollars to programs. These are accounting shenanigans, and nothing more
- the_ancient 11y agoNever Donate to the Red Cross..... There are far far far far better organizations out there.
- bretthagler 11y agoWe could fund 83,000 homes in Haiti with $500,000,000. We're Newstorycharity.org - a current YC nonprofit working in Haiti to crowdfund homes - 100% of public donations go to home construction - donors see exactly who they give to before they donate and a video of the EXACT family they funded in their new home after We're launching a summer campaign "100 Homes in 100 Days" [newstorycharity.org/100] in Haiti, and would love for the support of this community in showing how the future of philanthropy is built on transparency and technology.
- Matth3wMarshall 11y agoNew Story's other co-founder here, Matthew. Here's an example of video proof of impact that we show to EVERY single donor - http://newstorycharity.org/maria-rose http://newstorycharity.org/maria-rose And all 33 families that we have funded since launching a couple months ago - http://newstorycharity.org/families-page#funded-families http://newstorycharity.org/families-page#funded-families If you have any questions/comments just hit reply and we'll answer :)
- earless1 11y agoDo you guys ever need volunteers that speak English and Creole fluently?
- bretthagler 11y agoyes - we're always looking for competent translators! brett@newstorycharity.org
- bretthagler 11y agoWhere 100% of http://newstorycharity.org http://newstorycharity.org donations go: (1)http://newstorycharity.org/roseline http://newstorycharity.org/roseline *be sure to click on the home cost breakdown. The 33 families we've funded in 6 months: (2) http://newstorycharity.org/families-page#funded-families http://newstorycharity.org/families-page#funded-families Example of a video every donor gets: (3) http://newstorycharity.org/maria-rose http://newstorycharity.org/maria-rose
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