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Comment by dariusmonsef | Hacker News Reader

BEFORE you RT that RedCross donation message or donate any cash yourselves... please consider.

Red Cross is a giant beast of a company. It is $600,000,000 in debt. It has ridiculous overhead.

As fellow hackers... We're all trying to build startups/ideas because we think big companies are missing something... that we have a better way to do things... that we can build a better product.

If you want to help Haiti. Give directly. I spent 2 years building a non-profit (a start-up if you will) that sets up volunteer centers in disaster areas. We are a super lean organization with an executive director that takes a $0 per year salary.

Donations are being gathered to directly help the people in Haiti.

Donations Can Be Made Here: http://bit.ly/HODR_Haiti

Sorry to rant... but the RedCross-fest on Twitter right now is killing me.

EDIT: I created a new post with more info here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1051914

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I sympathize with your frustration with the American Red Cross, but please pay attention when posting financial information. The statement "It is $600,000,000 in debt" is incorrect.

The American Red Cross has $613MM in debt. But it also has $3.5BB in assets. In addition to the aforementioned debt, there are $1.2BB in additional liabilities, for total net assets of:

$1,672,466,000

Source: KPMG consolidated financial statement, June 30 2009.

http://www.redcross.org/www-files/Documents/pdf/corppubs/FY0...

There is an enormous difference between having debt and being in debt.

Infrastructure is expensive. It also enables acting on large scales immediately. I have no problem with the idea that money donated to the Red Cross may not go "directly" to the victims of the latest tragedy. Without the money for administrative and infrastructure costs, they would be unable to do what they do.

I think your startup is both good and noble. But I suspect that being a "beast of a company" and having large infrastructure costs is the price we have to pay for an organization to be able to respond immediately to humanitarian crisis on a global scale.

I agree with some of your criticisms of the Red Cross, however given that rapid response is necessary and this is time sensitive, can you actually use the money to deploy and ramp up in a short enough time to make the donation meaningful to the current crisis?

I support your aims, but the ability to move quickly is essential and it's unclear whether your organization is likely to bring support faster or slower. Could you elaborate?

Yes. We are the size we are precisely so we can move quickly. There are lots of other organizations that are already on the ground. Organizations we've already worked with. We'll have people on the ground in the next few days. We're also a share the love kind of organization. We find the best way to do the most good... sometimes that means giving our money to other organizations... sometimes we lend our volunteers to other organizations.

It's worth noting that the Red Cross generally ranks highly when it comes to efficiency (i.e., low overhead):

http://www.charitywatch.org/toprated.html#humanserv

Of course, this has a lot to do with economies of scale, and "low overhead" does not immediately imply "high impact per dollar."

I admit I'm naive. I don't know how efficient the Red Cross is, nor other operational issues.

They are, however, there. I gave to the Red Cross not just for Haiti, but for something else that will happen. It saddens me I donated because of Haiti, not just for Haiti.

I wish I knew more about operations such as yours. I wish I knew more about the organizations saving lives right now in Haiti. I wish I knew more about organizations and people who take on the lasting sadness after the horror.

I just don't know.

Thank you for giving me another organization I believe will be there.

You can text DOB to 90999 and $5 goes to Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders). Surely we can all agree they're okay.

MSF runs some of the only free medical centers in Haiti -- if you look at the news stories coming in about the injured, they tend to be from or near MSF facilities.

The Red Cross and UNICEF and other large charities are great, but it's definitely worth remembering that organizations like MSF have been on the ground in Haiti since before the quake.

Another option might be the IRC: International Rescue Committee, at http://www.theirc.org/

You can donate all of $5 in a similar manner by doing this: text 253-83 with the message 'haiti'. They'll send you more info and a confirmation request before you are billed the five bucks.

Friend of a worker there recommended it. I can't vouch for the organization and how they work, and agree with the parent post about overhead, but why not throw 5 dollars into an unknown, in a situation in a country that deserves so much better?

The fact that donations get processed on a different domain than hodr.org is a huge red flag for me. I already donated to UNICEF, but if I hadn't, I would have really thought twice before giving to HODR online.

Thanks for that feedback. I understand where you're coming from, but that's the company that processes our donations. You can check us out on the BBB site or on services like http://bit.ly/GuideStar_HODR (When we have extra $ we'll invest in our own SSL cert and payment processing. For now we'll let trusted services like Convio.com handle our donations.)

I wrote more info here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1051914*

Google does not mention Red Cross at all on their Haiti relief page. http://www.google.com/relief/haitiearthquake/

They do, last time I checked: """
The following organizations are accepting SMS donations in the US only:
* SMS text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts
"""

Does anyone know if SMS donations via skype work?

SMS donations are billed to your cell phone plan, so it only works on AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile

Thanks for your work, I despise the Red Cross.

Could you please elaborate? I'm sure a lot of hackers who give to the RedCross would be interested to understand your reasons so that they can make better decisions about donating to relief funds in the future.

Red Cross CEO earns $565,000 in salary.
What's interesting is that this is higher than the CEO cap the Obama administration placed on for-profit companies which received bailout money.
The Red Cross received $100 million in bailout money.
http://blog.charitynavigator.org/2009/02/non-profit-ceo-pay-...
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary...

CEO pay means nothing. What matters is how much good they do per dollar. I'm sure the amount of money they receive each year is available somewhere, and they'll be happy to tell you what they've accomplished with it. Compare that to other organizations instead of assuming they're ineffective because they think it's worthwhile to pay their CEO well.
The magnitude of CEO pay in the private sector is similarly a non-issue, but please keep my opinion on that to yourselves, lest the pitchforks be redirected toward me.

You're right that CEO pay doesn't mean that much in the scheme of things especially if they increase the effectiveness of the organization, but it's an issue that concerns people who make a lot less and are deciding where they should donate their hard earned dollars.
http://www.slate.com/id/2220596
Non-profits also use their allure of helping others to recruit and often pay rank and file employees less than market rate wages (see some comments in the slate article).
For example, doctors who work for these organizations could likewise be making $100's of K per year. Some doctors also work much harder than their market counterpart, performing more surgeries under difficult conditions.

I suspet the CEO is getting a lower percentae of market rate than the average doctor working for the red cross.

Upthread, it's reported the Red Cross has $3.5 billion in assets and $1.8 billion in liabilities. Managing an institution of that size, you don't want to skimp on executive talent, or you can lose a lot more than $565K in the blink of an eye. And, the current CEO probably made a lot more when she was in the private sector (at Fidelity Investments and AT&T).

Too big to exist in the realm of charity.
No thanks, I won't feed that inefficient monster.

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