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American Red Cross Donation Tips
Ensuring Your Donations Go Directly to the American Red Cross
WASHINGTON, Wednesday, January 19, 2005 — The American Red Cross has received generous pledges from individuals, foundations and corporations totaling $194 million to date to support the Red Cross tsunami relief efforts. As with any disaster and subsequent onset of giving, the American Red Cross is working hard to protect the public from misleading, unauthorized and fraudulent fundraising.
The American Red Cross works closely to ensure that fundraising promotions that benefit our organization are authorized by the American Red Cross in compliance with the fundraising guidelines of the Better Business Bureau. Several Web sites including Amazon.com and Yahoo are serving as official donation sites for the American Red Cross. In addition, thousands of other businesses nationwide are linking to the Red Cross to enable individuals to make direct donations to the organization.
American Red Cross considers the security of the donation website and its donors to be of paramount importance. As such, the organization uses several layers of protective measures including but not limited to blocking and filtering technologies, surveillance, system updates and anti-fraud measures. In addition, the Red Cross performs system vulnerability assessments using internal resources and external, third-party assessments.
To ensure that your donation goes directly to the American Red Cross, you can make a secure online donation through our website, call 1-800-HELP-NOW to make a donation by phone, or contact your local American Red Cross chapter. You may also mail your donation to the American Red Cross International Response Fund at P.O. Box 37243, Washington, DC 20013; or visit one of our official Red Cross donation partners.
Many charity watchdog groups have created tips for individuals to ensure that their donation goes directly to the organization of their choice. Some of the recommendations include visiting that organization's website directly; don't be fooled by names that closely resemble the name of a well-known charity; research the charity that you plan to donate to; be wary of telephone solicitations. For more tips on this topic, visit www.give.org or www.charitynavigator.org.
The American Red Cross has not authorized any “tsunami relief bracelets.” Upon discovering these unauthorized fundraising promotions, the American Red Cross stopped them. The Red Cross takes fraud seriously and often works with federal, state and local law enforcement on stopping fraudulent fundraising. The Red Cross continues to communicate on a regular basis with other non-profit groups, the Better Business Bureau, state attorney general offices and media and members of the public to investigate reports of improper and fraudulent fundraising.
If an individual is suspicious of a promotion claiming to benefit the American Red Cross, please contact your local Red Cross chapter to report the activity. The American Red Cross will follow-up any leads on potentially fraudulent scams and will take appropriate action.
Governed by volunteers and supported by community donations, the American Red Cross is a nationwide network of nearly 900 field units dedicated to saving lives and helping people prevent, prepare for and respond to emergencies. Led by 1 million volunteers and 36,000 employees, the Red Cross annually mobilizes relief to families affected by more than 70,000 disasters, trains almost 12 million people in lifesaving skills and keeps U.S. military families connected worldwide. The Red Cross is the largest supplier of blood and blood products to more than 3,000 hospitals across the nation and also assists victims of international disasters and conflicts at locations worldwide. Marsha J. Evans is the President and CEO of the American Red Cross.
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