Another rant.

[LCHIEN]

I give periodically to some organizations.
I will not name them but the one whose logo is a red cross sent me a mail about a week ago stating there is a "critical shortage" of blood in our area. please consider signing up for a blood drive.
So I went to the link they gave and found the page, it said search for a blood drive near you.
So I searched for blood drive locations within 10 , then 25 miles of my home 20 miles from downtown Houston.
Within 2 weeks, then within 4 weeks and so on out to 3 months ahead. NO search results found every time.

So I emailed them and said what kind of critical shortage is there if you are not taking donations? Your website shows no drive within 25 miles and 3 months.

And a week later I got a email stating "We sincerely apologize that you had difficulty locating drives near your area. I have searched the website and am providing a link below that includes the closest drives to your zip code within the next two weeks."
same **** page I complained about. Same no results found.

So This is a completely assinine situation. They are wasting my money asking for donations at nonexistant blood drives and their customer service is incompetent.

I'm not contributing to them anymore.

[twistsol]

I've had similar issues with them calling me for blood, always using locations where I've donated in the past rather than my address which they have on file. I'm not in Battle Creek MI, Mundelein, IL, Orange, NJ, Evansville, IN, Phoenix, AZ, Tampa, FL, or any of the other locations they call about. I finally had to block their phone number because it was two or three calls a week.

[capncarl]

You would think they would let the local chapters do the advertising/requests for blood donations rather than make a mess of it like they did.
Ive been a NRA member all my life until a couple of years ago when every time I went to the mail box it was full of their junk mail. It has to cost more to send each member this much junk mail that the membership costs. I called and asked to be taken off their mailing list, just apply my membership money to do NRA things. After I placed the call I started getting their telephone calls nearly every day..... and more mail. I called my canceled my membership because of that, and I now hang up on any of their calls.

[leehljp]

There is a huge disconnect in many organizations and companies between the actual workings and the "marketing departments". (Not all, but some). These marketing departments seem to run by their own rules without regard to the company's purpose or intent.

[atgcpaul]

I wonder if it's an end of fiscal year thing. Our organization operates in the same way. Our fiscal year ends in October and our purchasing shuts down for September to balance the books. So right now we go on a shopping spree to spend down our remaining funds or we lose that money in the next year. Maybe Red Cross' marketing department has to send out these (useless) mailers to do the same thing.

I'm surprised, though, there aren't any walk in donation centers for such a big metro like yours. I do live 30 miles outside DC but I've got 2 donation centers within 5 miles of me and another big hospital group in our area also has their own blood drives that compete with the Red Cross.

[Black walnut]

hijack in progress. It seems that threaded is enabled on this forum as a feature.... Interesting. /hijack

[twistsol]

Hijack continued. The threaded feature has been removed from vBulletin and was replaced with the ability to comment on a specific thread. It is sort of useful at times, but It doesn't seem always update the last post time for a thread.

[Black walnut]

I had a similar issue with a insurance company and a dentist office years ago. There were charges that my dental ins. company was paying on my behalf. The problem was I did not receive the services so it was a billing error. The Ins company didn't seem to care.

[jabe]

Check how much some of the CEOs of these organizations make $$$$$$ plus benefits. Red Cross & Goodwill's make a lot compare that to Salvation Army's CEO, after seeing that, I only donate to the Salvation Army. Something to think about!

[woodturner]

Check how much some of the CEOs of these organizations make $$$$$$ plus benefits. Red Cross & Goodwill's make a lot compare that to Salvation Army's CEO, after seeing that, I only donate to the Salvation Army. Something to think about!

Good point - but many public charities do pay employees, so they do not use 100% of your contributions for their mission. Many church denominations have mission and charity projects where 100% of the money you give is used for the mission, and they are run either by volunteers or the staff are paid by the denomination. In my opinion, that's a much better option - if I donate money to dig wells in Africa, I want my money to go for that, not to pay an employee.

I'd still like to know why employers "push" United Way so much. They are one of the worst with high overhead. Other organizations that were historically charities are now for profit corporations - so it is also a good idea to check on the status before donating.

[leehljp]

Good point - but many public charities do pay employees, so they do not use 100% of your contributions for their mission. Many church denominations have mission and charity projects where 100% of the money you give is used for the mission, and they are run either by volunteers or the staff are paid by the denomination. In my opinion, that's a much better option - if I donate money to dig wells in Africa, I want my money to go for that, not to pay an employee.

I'd still like to know why employers "push" United Way so much. They are one of the worst with high overhead. Other organizations that were historically charities are now for profit corporations - so it is also a good idea to check on the status before donating.

Volunteering is down considerably from 30 years ago in spite of some millennials penchant for volunteering. Volunteering used to be something that people did for a full day or two or three days a week. Now, it is for a few hours at the volunteers choosing rather than on a schedule.

1. There was a time when there was only one bread winner in the family and mostly the wife was a stay at home mom. After kids were in school, volunteering was an option that many took advantage of. Not so today. To make a decent living, both spouses are required to work.

2. The WWII generation were great at volunteering, many of these retired at 62 - 65 and volunteered. These folks are past the volunteering age now. The baby boom generation (me) for the most part were/are not retiring at 62-65 as our parents did. And if we do, many get a second part time job. Those that DO retire do FAR MORE traveling than the WWII generation did; partly to see grandkids or to see the world that they didn't when they were working. This cuts down on volunteering as compared to when the major organizations could depend on volunteers.

3. I agree that some organizations pay their CEO too much, but that is greatly skewed as to the work load. Red Cross included. (I think the RC does pay too much, but they do far more than we realize. I work with disaster relief and there is NO ONE who comes close to the total help that the Red Cross provides. I have worked in conjunction with the Red Cross on many occasions. In my local area, when there is a fire in a house or a tornado that blows two or three houses away, we don't hear of those because they are not major national news.

But it is the local Red Cross that gives them a card for $300 - $1000 for a couple of nights in a motel, get a couple of change of clothes, and two days of food, as well as find long term shelter and help in finding replacement furniture and clothes and things. To do this in almost EVERY community across the USA takes a huge sum of money and personnel. At major disasters, the Red Cross and FEMA are there first on hand and coordinating on a national scale with hundreds of smaller organizations that want to jump in and take over. Coordination is a HUGE undertaking. The Red Cross's ability here is literally a life saver to many, many. And the Red Cross has folks hooked in with Government departments (Mostly FEMA) that set and enforce regulations to prevent sub standard food feeding, cleaning out, or even prevent the fleecing of local disaster victims.

BTW, we don't hear of the RC's work much because house fires are far more in the lower economic areas than middle income and above. Ever wonder what those near poverty or in poverty do when their house burns? Where do they go? How do they eat? What do they do for clothes? How do they find a home nearby to keep their kids in school? The RC AND the DHS work together, and it takes both. The RC, because they are a non-profit organization, can do things that the DHS cannot in helping people find shelter, food and clothing.

I don't work with the Red Cross directly, but my organization has had a local volunteer organization that was taken advantage of on a daily basis by unscrupulous people, about 1 in 5, as to their needs. We worked with the DHS to eliminate some, But it was the Red Cross that helped the most to eliminate these. The Red Cross representative was the greatest help in determining if a person was in need. IN todays world it takes a huge amount of time to determine if a needy family is truly needy or just fleecing an organization. One family came and gave a sad story with some provable factual truths woven in and we helped; then went to a related church and gave the same sad story, and said that we were ugly to them and that we refused to help them. After that, we ran everything through the Red Cross representative first, and the DHS second. (The DHS, didn't have the time to give us on every request, and I don't blame them.) It takes a lot of human resources to do what the Red Cross does, and DHS does for all of the scams that goes on by individuals and families in a local area.

AS to the Salvation Army (SA), They do a great job, but it is not without the ability to make it self-sustaining. This year, we got out of the clothing and feeding ministry simply because volunteers dropped down to a few volunteers in their upper 70s and into the 80s in age. It was costing $25,000+ a year to give clothes away (with paid workers being paid out of a different account from the clothing and feeding ministry) and feed those in special needs. Declining Churches are giving less and forced us to close. We talked with the SA. Initially they were interested, but they never got to the point of asking about our building. They have two SA stores in similar socio-economics and demographic areas. They refused because it is not economically sustainable in our generational poverty area of MS. But the Red Cross is here.

It is a matter of seeing what is behind the scenes of each organization. Not everything is what it appears and it is easy to twist a fact to make it look different than it is. An organization that gives things away appears good. An organization that coordinates human resources effectively takes far more money to operate when it works on the local level in nearly every community in the USA. The RC people I know work their behinds off, and they are first responders just about every time.