Quality As Well As Quantity

Many of you may know that the way the American Red Cross does business is changing. From the top down, the organization is streamlining its board of directors, national offices, and field units (chapters) all in an effort to refocus the organization on its core commitment to the American Citizen, disaster relief.

On a local level, beginning January 1st, the Upstate Chapter became a Regional Chapter and accepted a degree of responsibility for six additional counties, thus expanding its area of service to the 11 counties that commonly comprise Upstate South Carolina. This may seem to conflict with my opening statement, but in actuality, it allows community chapters and service centers to concentrate their efforts on service delivery.

Prior to January 1st., there were four individual chapters in the Upstate. They all had the administrative responsibility of reporting its financial, disaster response, and Health & Safety numbers to the Service Area Headquarters in Raleigh. The Service Area Headquarters would then convey them to our National Office. Reporting requirements for larger chapters was no problem. For smaller chapters, compliance with the procedures was far too expensive and time consuming.

Since the change, smaller chapters became Community Chapters and shifted all of their administrative responsibilities, and its expense, to the Regional Chapter. The shift accomplishes a few things: first, fewer hands touching donor dollars increases accountability and accuracy in reporting to the Regional Headquarters. Second, the Community Chapters now have the opportunity to concentrate on delivering quality services tailored to meet the unique needs of the community it serves. This becomes more significant as we see a rise in disaster responses across the Upstate. Quality as well as quantity.

When the quality of Red Cross services rise, along with it occurs a rise in community awareness, community voluntarism, and donations to the local chapter. So, the American Red Cross making voluntary changes from the top down is a good thing, not only for the victims of disaster, but for the Red Cross itself.

By Brian Scoles