
In Search Of The Red Cross' $500M In Haiti Relief (2015) - wallace_f
http://www.npr.org/2015/06/03/411524156/in-search-of-the-red-cross-500-million-in-haiti-relief
======
masters3d
"The point is that the concern we should have is not just about the
$500,000,000 donated for Haiti for which the good hearted donors received just
six $400 shacks. The concern is about billions of donated dollars intended to
help people all over the world. The Haiti data demonstrates that for each
billion donated to the Red Cross we get a total of 12 each $400 shacks which
we wouldn't put our lawn mower in.

The greatest mystery for me is why the major media outlets keep advising well
intended Americans to give to the Red Cross. If any of us operated like the
Red Cross has for years the media would be screaming for our prosecution as it
should. Why not the Red Cross? And worse, why do they encourage hard working
and generous Americans to give to an organization about whom there is public
knowledge of extreme abuse of billions of donated dollars ?!" \- Hotes
Foundation

Reference:

[https://hotesfoundation.org/500-million-for-6-shacks-in-
hait...](https://hotesfoundation.org/500-million-for-6-shacks-in-haiti-a-drop-
in-the-bucket-of-red-cross-donation-abuses/)

[https://hotesfoundation.org/red-cross-haiti-relief-
scandal/](https://hotesfoundation.org/red-cross-haiti-relief-scandal/)

~~~
yeukhon
Good question. There is Salvation Army, which accordingly to the comparison to
Red Cross, has done extremely better job, delivering its mission well. But why
didn't orgs like FB or Google (I forgot which) advertized SA? SA is well-known
too.

I think there is a social effect, but more likely because the people working
at Red Cross has better reach to the big organizations and media outlet,
despite the backlashes.

The same with World Health Organization (WHO). Top officials still buy luxury
first-class ticket and hotel room. Why? Whatnis wrong with an econ seat?

~~~
ianamartin
SA is tied to Catholics, and this is a big deal breaker for a lot of people.

~~~
fiddlerwoaroof
That’s not true, the Salvation Army is, as I understand, its own Christian
denomination.

~~~
grzm
Yup. It separated from Methodism. Even have their own tartan!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Salvation_Army#Tartan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Salvation_Army#Tartan)

------
simonw
Worth re-iterating: The American Red Cross and the International Committee of
the Red Cross are independent organizations, with very different reputations.

~~~
pragone
Care to expand on this?

Edit: Based on the downvotes, I'm guessing I wasn't really clear what I was
going for - I hadn't heard about the International Committee before, so I was
looking for some more information about how they differ.

~~~
siddboots
The structure of the international red cross movement is a bit confusing.
There are completely independent national societies in most countries (E.g.
The American Red Cross), as well international organisations based in Geneva
(The ICRC and the IFCR).

In the US, the phrase "Red Cross" often is used to refer to " __American Red
Cross __" , which is the national society who deliver blood services and local
disaster response. They've come under some criticism for apparent lack of
transparency around how donations are spent, and for allegedly having very
high overheads.

The __IFRC __(International Federation) is an international organisation that
facilitates cooperation between the independent national societies.

The __ICRC __(International Committee) is a large international organisation
whose mandate derives from the Geneva Convention, and whose work is focussed
on armed conflict. They work with war casualties, prisoners of war, refugees,
civilian victims of all forms, on any and all sides of conflict. They also
help coordinate disaster relief in lots of cases just because they have the
organisational ability to do it. In my opinion they 're among the most
trustworthy organisations that you could give to.

~~~
craftyguy
> They've come under some criticism for apparent lack of transparency around
> how donations are spent, and for allegedly having very high overheads.

They are also borderline abusive with how often they will call you and harass
you if you miss an opportunity to donate blood. They apparently have unlimited
funds to pay phone operators.

~~~
astura
Not borderline abusive, they are straight up abusive with their phone calls.
If you ever decide to give blood _do NOT give them your phone number._

I tried to give blood ONCE and found out that I was ineligible. For the next
five years or so they harassed me non stop about giving blood. I told them I
was ineligible they just said "ok" but I still got phonecalls. I asked them to
stop calling me but they didn't stop. After a while I would just hang up on
them. I got the phonecalls to stop by emailing the ombudsman. Never got a
reply but the phonecalls stopped shortly after.

~~~
treehau5
I noticed this as well.

I recently decided to stop giving them blood, however, because I was actually
reading the fine print for once, and apparently they send your blood off for
use in research at universities and you cannot opt out.

~~~
jnty
Why is that a bad thing?

~~~
treehau5
I am giving you my blood to help people not for your side channel research
efforts. If a university wants to use my blood for testing and research they
may do so _at my discretion_ , not in spite of it. Also, I would like to be
able to review the privacy policy of that particular university and know if
they have any attempts to turn a profit with a pharmaceutical company. Again,
blood is very sensitive and very personally identifiable. I want the least
amount of people possible (who don't actually need it to survive) to have it.
I have no idea what the future holds in terms of genetic testing, genetic
discrimination, and most importantly, how this particular research university
handles data storage and information about my blood and I.

Anyways, long story short, I will be using my local blood organizations from
now on, or just going directly to the hospital to donate.

------
tlb
A plug for New Story
([https://newstorycharity.org/](https://newstorycharity.org/)), which has
built 900+ homes in Haiti for $6000 in donations each. And they think a lot
about building those homes into functional communities.

~~~
bretthagler
Thanks, Trevor. Hi all, I'm the ceo and co-founder at New Story. We're proud
of the work we've done in Haiti as we've also used all local material and
local labor to build the homes. What's more transparent than just the "100%"
promise, is that we prove to donors via family profile pages and move-in
videos the exact results of their donation.

If someone donated $6k on our site now, 100% of that goes towards local
materials cost, labor, and sometimes the land for the home.

We have a separate bank account to fund salaries, R&D, etc. Therefore, donors
have the option to give directly to a home/family (which we show you the
digital profile of that family and a move-in video), or a donor can choose to
give to our "Builders fund" that covers salaries, R&D, travel, etc. We ask for
minimum donations of $25k/ for 3 years to join the Builders fund.

I completely understand the "marketing scheme" some have mentioned. We really
don't view it that way. If someone gives to homes, it's absolutely
_restricted_ to go towards building homes. If a donor gives specifically to an
innovation project we're working on, their donation is restricted towards that
project.

Happy to answer any other questions.

[https://www.fastcompany.com/3058514/did-this-new-
nonprofit-c...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3058514/did-this-new-nonprofit-
crack-the-code-for-building-developing-world-housing)

~~~
toomuchtodo
What's the biggest challenge your organization faces?

My kneejerk reaction is: local labor!? local materials!? So inefficient! But
I'm wrong. You're doing exactly what's needed; bootstrapping skills and
contributing towards the local economy.

I'm curious how much housing is still needed in Haiti, how much more money
into the pipeline would fix the problem, etc. Would you be able to scale
beyond Haiti? Sorry to ramble, love the mission!

~~~
fencepost
It's been years since I was an American Red Cross (local) disaster services
volunteer, but at the time I believe the philosophy was also providing funds
rather than materials because it helped local economies recover.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Also, if many people donate materials, it quickly turns into a logistic
clusterfuck, where the charity suddenly has to worry about (and spend money
on) shipping tons of stuff across the world, which is significantly more
expensive than just buying it locally.

~~~
toyg
Expensive and wasteful, as people all donate the same tin of beans and no
spoon to eat it with, so to speak. But there is also a point to this sort of
donation - gifting in kind usually ensures it won't be pocketed along the way.
It might get wasted (food expires, boxes break etc), but rarely exploited for
profit - or so the common wisdom goes.

Unfortunately, something like that can still be used for evil in many ways.
Say your container full of cans gets delivered to Port Disaster and stored in
customs; the local docks boss (be it a warlord or local leader) gets wind of
it and refuses to release it unless his palms are greased. The org will be
forced to pay, otherwise all effort will be for nought, food will rot etc.
Charitable gifts will then help fostering the blackmail and corruption
economies that wars and disasters inevitably create, rather than relieving the
honest one. But then again, so would random "cash rain".

There is no magic bullet, all solutions have their downside. Operating in
crisis scenarios is a constant moral maze.

------
richardknop
There is an interesting book called Lords of Poverty from Graham Hancock. It's
from 80s when he used to work as a correspondent for the Economist in Africa.

He claims that foreign aid and charities that raise tons of money from Western
people for different projects in Africa are a total waste of money. The amount
of corruption and waste is so huge that majority of the money people from US
or EU donate ends up going directly to local strongmen who buy new cars etc
and almost none of the money ends with the people it was intended for.

This is why I don't donate to charities. I believe for every dollar I would
donate perhaps $0.1 would actually reach the destination and be spent on
helping people. I'd rather donate directly to people in need after I meet them
and can see that they are legit and there aren't several layers of middlemen
leaching off the donated money.

~~~
scandox
He currently gets quite a roasting on Wikipedia for his "unscientific
theories". It does appear his main interest after that book is The Orion
Correlation Theory and let's say "exciting" Archaeology.

~~~
richardknop
Yeah he is otherwise famous for his "alternative" archeology with books like
Fingerprints of the Gods etc. Which by the way is a great book and although
there is a lot of outlandish claims I wouldn't say it's totally crazy. Nothing
wrong with speculating and exploring non mainstream ideas.

But I still think Lords of Poverty is a legitimate book and he had a lot of on
the ground experience in Africa to observe how foreign aid is distributed and
wasted. So I don't like dismissing his earlier work even if you find his
later, let's say fictional work, dubious.

~~~
simonh
I loved reading Fingerprints of the Gods, but it’s utter tosh. I’ve also seen
him on TV shows and I wouldn’t trust a single thing in any book the guy has
ever written. He shows complete and utter disregard for plain proof that any
of his theories must be wrong. Any and all counter evidence is merely ‘one
data point’ while even the flimsiest, most contrived point in his favour is
strong or convincing evidence. He’s very entertaining and obviously a clever
guy, but utterly unreliable.

~~~
richardknop
Well, there is a sequel called Magicians of the Gods. I also wouldn't trust
him too much but I'm willing to entertain interesting theories, nothing wrong
with that.

I especially liked his work on Sphinx erosion patterns in Egypt together with
Dr Robert M Schoch from Boston University (and I am not saying we should
overthrow the ancient Egyptian history based one factor like erosion pattern
but it is intriguing).

Another interesting thing is the newly discovered 11,500 years old Gobekli
Tepe, which is really interesting. I enjoy reading stuff like this in my
leisure time or during long flights. Doesn't mean I trust it completely of
course ;)

------
cowholio4
One thing that gets overlooked commonly with the the Red Cross is that it is a
congressional charter. [1]

According to the charter the purposes of the corporation are:

(1) to provide volunteer aid in time of war to the sick and wounded of the
armed forces, in accordance with the spirit and conditions of: (A) the
conference of Geneva of October, 1863; (B) the treaties of the Red Cross, or
the treaties of Geneva, of August 22, 1864, July 27, 1929, and August 12,
1949, to which the United States of America has given its adhesion; and (C)
any other treaty, convention, or protocol similar in purpose to which the
United States of America has given or may give its adhesion;

(2) in carrying out the purposes described in clause (1) of this section, to
perform all the duties devolved on a national society by each nation that has
acceded to any of those treaties, conventions, or protocols; (3) to act in
matters of voluntary relief and in accordance with the military authorities as
a medium of communication between the people of the United States and the
armed forces of the United States and to act in those matters between similar
national societies of governments of other countries through the International
Committee of the Red Cross and the Government, the people, and the armed
forces of the United States

The problem is that sure we can donate to other organizations but the Red
Cross still is in a way a representive of America. And if they are so bad at
delivering aid to Haiti; I wonder how effective they are at their other
duties. I wonder if congress can revoke their charter? Or force reform? But
that seems like an almost impossible task.

[1]
[http://www.redcross.org/images/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m4...](http://www.redcross.org/images/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m4240124_charter.pdf)

~~~
craftyguy
Given their brand recognition status, any attempts by Congress to revoke their
charter would be a career-ending move for the politicians involved.

~~~
opportune
It could happen, it just couldn't come out of the blue. Someone would probably
need to pay for a nation-wide awareness campaign (the irony) about the evils
of corrupt charities such as The Red Cross or Susan G Komen.

~~~
finnh
What's up with Komen? I realize I could google it, forgive me, but it sounds
like you're in a position to give me a quick precis =)

~~~
opportune
They actually only spend about 20% of their revenues on breast cancer
research. They spend a lot of their money, about 40% of revenue, on "awareness
companies" which have dubious real-world effectiveness, and can be considered
a clever way for them to market themselves and fundraise without actually
having to report it as such (they spend 10% on fundraising to begin with).

They're also very litigious. Of course they need to protect their brand, but
in a lot of cases they are pretty objectively the bad guys. They have taken
legal action against other orgs/charities using "for the cure" in their names,
they've taken action against orgs/charities using "cure" and pink together.

In general I think they are more focused on self-perpetuation than curing
cancer. There's a lot of reading material on how some of their corporate
partnerships have been deceptive in the sense that Susan G Komen received very
little directly financially, and took the opportunity as a chance to market
themselves instead.

Their CEO and upper management do make a lot of money, but I don't think it's
out of line for an organization their size. It's still a matter of controversy
though.

~~~
fencepost
They probably also haven't fully recovered from their brief attempt in
2011-2012 to stop working with Planned Parenthood [1][2], which is where a
large number of women get medical care such as breast exams and cancer
screenings. They had a huge drop in donations following that debacle.

For the curious, Karen Handel (now R-GA6) is believed to have been the driving
force behind that.

[1] [https://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/11/09/giving/komen-
foundatio...](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/11/09/giving/komen-foundation-
works-to-regain-support-after-planned-parenthood-controversy.html?referer=)

[2] [http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-susan-g-
kom...](http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-susan-g-
komen-20140108-story.html)

------
danielvf
I built an internal system reporting on billions of dollars of project
spending for a large NGO family. People inside the family of organizations
could see financial budgets, actual financials, and progress information for
any of thousands of projects.

Every project had a person responsible for it, written out goals and risks, at
least quarterly progress updates, and funding organizations checking up on the
projects at regular basis. Even when partnering with local organizations to
get work done, the NGO had permanent people in the country keeping an eye on
things.

There are definitely organizations that do a good job of handling this stuff.

~~~
wavefunction
Thanks for your work on their behalf and your optimistic message.

Even a bit of progress or positive change is priceless.

------
coupdejarnac
It's kind of surprising people still donate to Red Cross, given their
extremely poor track record. I suppose they have brand name recognition. South
Park had a great jab at them, with all the 9/11 donations being stored away in
an Indiana Jones lost ark style warehouse.

~~~
dogruck
I'd say it's sad, but not surprising. People are sheep.

~~~
whichdan
I wouldn't go that far - companies partner with The Red Cross left and right
after every major disaster, and the mainstream media downplays the problems
with the organization. For the average person, there's no reason to suspect
that they'd be misusing/misappropriating funds.

~~~
hackinthebochs
So what exactly are the problems with the Red Cross?

------
velox_io
Whenever I see a charity ad that tugs on my heart strings, I check their
directors salaries* and my conscience is pretty clear. I have no issue with
capitalism, but for people who do want a high salary (many don't), then
perhaps the charity sector isn't the best option.

I'd like a similar scheme as food labelling colour codes. So key facts such as
% to cause, % to management team, top salary K. This would greatly aid in
transparency, rather than trying to read their financial's which are often
little more than a glossy brochure. Plus, more auditing on the bigger ones to
investigate large inefficiencies/ backhanders wouldn't be a bad idea.

*That's not including their expenses, which I bet are astronomical.

PS: I get that some charities have higher operating costs (e.g. medical
research). Especially when I myself suffer from quite a rare condition called
CRPS (unfortunately one of the most painful conditions known..), yet I
struggle to recommend a charity that is making a difference. I'd love
something to go viral like the ice-bucket challenge, but I don't see a way
that wouldn't result in serious injuries.

~~~
JoBrad
There are a few sites that do this, but one that I use to evaluate charities
is Giving Matters. You can access quite a lot of information for free, and
it's reasonably well designed.

------
joe_the_user
Haiti is a complex and contradiction-ridden place.

As the poorest nation, per capita, in western hemisphere, Haiti is often the
"face of poverty", with photographs of its most unfortunates featured on fund-
raising newsletters of every sort but with the failures of efforts at reform
being featured on every debunking of

I have a personal friend, white, who served as something of a liaison, moving
goods, between the random (white) Americans who showed up on Haiti after the
earth quake and the people (black, Haitian) who needed assistance. She helped
some substantial number of people but naturally only a drop in the bucket.

Haiti has a complex structure of repression which has held power for quite
some time. The multitude of corrupt processes in the nation naturally don't
help either. But as is visible, charities are remarkably unconcerned with
these subtleties, being bureaucracies like all bureaucracies, they plow ahead
with pouring X dollars into Y problem with consultations with Z experts.

Literally, you can find groups of people in America, Houston in particular,
doing 100x as the Red Cross with considerably less - because they are people
actually walking into the situation and trying to figure out what's needed.

Bureaucracy once has its strength relative to such efforts but this strength
seems entirely lost now. I'd chalk it down to the general decay of this
society.

What I know of Haiti comes from above, meeting just a few Haitians and the
following texts:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Jacobins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Jacobins)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Duvalier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Duvalier)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Comedians_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Comedians_\(novel\))

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Serpent_and_the_Rainbow_(b...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Serpent_and_the_Rainbow_\(book\))
[http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=9966](http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=9966)

~~~
grecy
It's got nothing to do with the place.

I'm in West Africa now. Same story here. Same in the East too.

I have met hundreds of UN and NGO workers making $1000/day, doing absolutely
and completely nothing. Mostly they are proud of it.

Many, many NGOs spend millions to build for example one shed or deliver one
truck, which is abandoned less than 2 months later for lack of maintenance.

In the same way healthcare is for profit in the US, many "donations" are for
profit.

~~~
majani
You're actually agreeing with him because your point is also a bureaucracy
issue.

------
campuscodi
For all the younger people reading this.

This is just one of the numerous media stories on how donation money always
ends up paying multi-million salaries for top execs.

Sadly, charlatans are everywhere. The Red Cross is just a another brand used
to con gullible and well intended people.

~~~
Nursie
The _American_ Red Cross might be.

The Red Cross/Red Crescent in the rest of the world is a very important
humanitarian response organisation.

~~~
FabHK
Yes, undifferentiated across-the-board cynicism doesn't help either, and could
discourage donations to charities that do make a difference.

There are organisations that evaluate charities, and they show that you can
easily save lives by donating:

[http://givewell.org](http://givewell.org)

[http://www.thelifeyoucansave.org](http://www.thelifeyoucansave.org)

------
meri_dian
It doesn't help the Haitian cause that the rampant corruption in their country
prevents aid money given in good faith from ever reaching the people or
projects for which it was originally intended.

------
baldfat
AS a cancer dad about 5 years ago the American Cancer Society (The largest
cancer fund in America) got a lot of heat from parents who's children had
cancer. The ACS would have pictures of Children for their donations champagne
and less then $0.005 for every dollar would go for Pediatric Cancer Research
AND they cut funding for all other Pediatric funding (AKA Camps and assisting
families). They finally changed a LITTLE bit in 2016.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-agin/friends-dont-
let...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-agin/friends-dont-let-
friends-_2_b_2759403.html)

[http://shelterislandreporter.timesreview.com/2013/08/12/camp...](http://shelterislandreporter.timesreview.com/2013/08/12/camp-
in-funding-challenge-with-american-cancer-society-gone/)

Federal Funding of Pediatric Cancer Research funds. People age 0-18 get 4% of
the funding and do not benefit from research for adults since 0-18 your normal
good cells are also dividing and growing. Research for Pediatric Cancer
benefits EVERYONE since they tend to be less side effects and effective for
all. Children went over 20 years before their with only two new Chemotherapy
drugs for them while they were advertised by different organizations to get
funding. St Baldrick's funded research came out with a one that ends up being
VERY effective.

[https://www.stbaldricks.org/blog/post/breaking-news-the-
fda-...](https://www.stbaldricks.org/blog/post/breaking-news-the-fda-approves-
childhood-cancer-drug)

[https://www.stbaldricks.org/filling-the-funding-
gap/](https://www.stbaldricks.org/filling-the-funding-gap/)

We as a family support St Baldricks 100%

------
designium
I wonder if there is a way to make non profitsmore accountable for the money
they receive from big disaster donations.

~~~
dogruck
Would be nice to put the management through the legal system and if found
guilty to put them inside of a locked metal cage.

------
dmix
Considering the per capita is $719 then I could see $50 to each Haitan would
have been a better use of the money ($500M / 10M population). Or that per
family...

~~~
fencepost
Perhaps not as much as you'd think. Just handing out lump sums of money like
that could really result in jacking up of prices to handle that windfall.
Where and how the money is distributed can make a huge difference in how much
impact it has.

------
haywirez
Might be of interest:
[https://www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org/](https://www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org/)

It's a project to evaluate and rank NGOs based on how effective they really
are. They have managed funds based on topics of interest as well.

------
deepnotderp
Is there any non religious charity that does well?

~~~
nether
GiveDirectly. They give cash, no strings attached. So hardly any overhead. NPR
Planet Money tried to have a guy build a school in Haiti. They were flush with
donations. After all was said and done, a year later they barely had a
concrete foundation. That was it. They asked the guy, a highly experienced
American contractor/builder/etc. if, starting over, he'd have just given them
cash. He said, "Definitely." GiveDirectly was started _because_ charities like
Red Cross do so badly.

------
martywm
This doesn’t suprise me :\ I think YC funded a non profit that was designed to
avoid corruption like this.

------
slackoverflower
I always wondered how the global offices looked for these big charity
organizations. With $500M, I imagine they have offices in those urban
corporate office skyscrapers and Silicon Valley tech company styled HQs.

~~~
jonknee
You could always just look it up...

[https://goo.gl/maps/FqnvU95D2eK2](https://goo.gl/maps/FqnvU95D2eK2)

------
intrasight
I give to UNICEF

------
jswizzy
This is why I give to religious charities

------
cowholio4
This was widely reported back in 2015 when this was published. You might want
to add (2015) to the title.

~~~
cowholio4
This report prompted a congressional report a year later. Ultimately Red Cross
is a horribly inefficient way to give aid to areas in need of relief.

[https://www.propublica.org/article/senator-red-cross-
misled-...](https://www.propublica.org/article/senator-red-cross-misled-
congress-refused-to-level-with-people-haiti-money)
[https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2861873-Senator-
Gras...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2861873-Senator-Grassley-s-
report-on-the-Red-Cross-June.html)

~~~
lostlogin
Your second link is clear, but the first one doesn’t make it clear that it’s
the American Red Cross that’s the problem.

------
dogruck
It's astounding how powerful the Red Cross brand is. I'd like to read a study
how how much the brand influences donors. For example, try to raise money
using identical mechanisms under a different header.

Also, I liked this: "I'm not a big mathematician, but I can make some
additions. It doesn't add up for me."

~~~
jackemupguy2
Legit question - what's the alternative?

~~~
mistb0rn-
Doctors without a frontier? It's sad though, I think many europeans would like
to donate money for people in need, but when you find out things like this ...
Americans really managed to ruin this as well.

~~~
MistahKoala
Mystified as to why you seem to think this is in some way an American problem.
We have lots of fake charities in the EU.

~~~
jopsen
In the EU charities aren't as big... Or as well branded. At least not the
sketchy ones.

Most big charities I know in the EU have good records... Particularly the
state-sponsored ones.

\- to be fair I could be uninformed :)

~~~
MistahKoala
I don't think that's at all true. There are many large organisations that
spend a significant amount on staffing and marketing, masquerading as
charities. The state-sponsored ones are some of the worst, as they're
recycling taxpayers' money to lobby the governments that pay them, with a
revolving door of lucrative executive and lobbying jobs keeping it all afloat.

------
Clubber
>But the charity will not provide a list of specific programs it ran, how much
they cost or what their expenses were.

Corruption, ineptitude or both? It's the American way!

~~~
eots
This pretty much happens all over the globe.

~~~
agumonkey
Recently read that fair trade procuder just spend the money in bigger cars and
such.

Charity.

~~~
T2_t2
So pick better charities: [http://www.givewell.org/](http://www.givewell.org/)

