Red Cross has some work to do at home after Katrina

There is no denying the good work that has been done by the American Red Cross for 125 years, but documents submitted to a U.S. Senate committee indicate that the agency has known since the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks that it has organizational problems that have been allowed to fester.
Those shortcomings were exposed by Hurricane Katrina as it swept across Florida and smashed into the Gulf Coast. Which is not to say that the Red Cross, and especially its tens of thousands of unpaid volunteers, did not do yeoman work in saving lives and relieving misery.
But the world has changed and the demands placed on the Red Cross as the nation's pre-eminent disaster-relief charity demand that it adapt.
Pot and the kettle
Of course, there are those who will note that the criticism of the Red Cross is coming from the U.S. Senate and the government, they will say, has a lot of nerve criticizing the Red Cross. That kind of defensive reaction may score a few cheap debating points, but it won't solve any problems.
The Department of Homeland Security is already under scrutiny for failures in organization, management and response to Katrina. Congressional and administrative reviews are underway.
The spotlight was properly placed on the Red Cross by the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees charitable organizations. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the committee chairman, called for immediate changes and warned the Red Cross board Monday that "business-as-usual" won't be tolerated.
The American Red Cross submitted thousands of pages of corporate memos, internal e-mail and responses to questions from Grassley's committee.
What emerged was a picture of an institution that had been told in a strongly worded memo by board member Bill George in October 2001 that Red Cross management was not embracing change and that a fractured board was making anything more than superficial change unlikely.
In the wake of questions raised about Red Cross response to 9/11, CEO Bernadine Healy's resigned. Four years later, the group's next CEO, Marsha Evans, would resign in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, citing board friction.
The Red Cross has been described as overwhelmed by shortages of water, food and supplies, complicated by a disorganized shelter process. Some lawmakers have already suggested that the Red Cross lose its designation as the primary charitable responder in disaster situations.
Class of its own
That is clearly premature. Whatever its shortcomings may have been, no other responder comes close to having the ability of the Red Cross to assemble resources and respond with tens of thousands of volunteers on short notice. It also has the ability to collect enormous amounts of money and convert that money into goods and services in a timely manner. That it has not always done so perfectly speaks to the need for changes; it does not recommend abandonment of an institution that has served millions of people in hard times for five generations.
The Red Cross has spent $1.77 billion of the roughly $2 billion it raised for the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes. It is estimated that only 6 percent will go toward administrative costs of fund raising and management. Matching that level of performance would be difficult.
The Red Cross has acknowledged deficiencies in "technology, logistics and coordination" in its Katrina response and has pledged to fully cooperate with the Senate committee's review.
That, along with a statement that the Red Cross is committed to learning from its mistakes and making changes, is encouraging.
It is to the nation's best interest to fix whatever institutional problems the American Red Cross may have rather than try to build a replacement for the organization founded by Clara Barton in 1881 and chartered by Congress more than a century ago.