American Red Cross: A Corporate Fleecing Operation Exploiting Natural Disasters

Report reveals organization more interested in PR than alleviating suffering

The American Red Cross is a corporate shell devouring millions of dollars in donations.

It not only fails to provide assistance to disaster victims but gets in the way of efforts by smaller, more efficient emergency relief efforts.

A joint investigation conducted by ProPublica and NPR discovered the Red Cross is not interested in its declared mission of “preventing and relieving suffering.” Instead, the organization diverts “assets for public relations purposes” and its distribution of relief supplies, according to one internal report, is “politically driven.”

This public relations agenda, designed to suck up donations from sympathetic Americans, resulted in a fake relief effort during Hurricane Isaac that was “worse than the storm,” according to Jim Dunham, a truck driver. Dunham said Red Cross trucks were dispatched “just to be seen” and were “sent way down on the Gulf with nothing to give.”

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