Red Cross has all of the bureaucracy and byzantine dysfunction of a major corporation, as well as all of the annoyances, pitfalls, and limitations of a generic small non-profit.
Briefly put, major structural changes in the last five years (which were necessary, as before that the organization was simply spending itself into bankruptcy) have been sloppily executed, and as a result major miscommunication and resentment exists where before it was simply a small annoyance.
Massive layoffs, no job security, bloated grandfathered-in executive salaries, nonexistent HR, laughably bad IT, and an overall let's-just-wing-it-and-trust-that-our-famous-brand-keeps-us-afloat makes for a terrible, terrible employee and volunteer experience.
Below are some of the main points:
- no investment in volunteers' training, recruitment, or recognition
- consequently, awful, frustrated, low-quality volunteers who are just as confused as the staff
- unrealistic hours (60/week for $25k/year? NOPE)
- department silo-ing and infighting for funds
- no HR. seriously, every department is expected to manage all of their volunteers and employees with no guidance from a specific HR-trained employee
- IT that rarely works; outdated computers; slow, slow, slow response from centralized support
- budgeting? what budgeting? just spend money and hope that donations cover it, and if they don't, a hurricane will bring in massive windfall and cover up the debt from the year before!
- grandfathered-in higher-ups who have contracted pay increases and bloated salaries, versus temporary contractors, AmeriCorps, and new hires who get by on minimum wage (or less, when calculating hours)
- gross disregard of grant stipulations and "stewardship of the donor dollar"
- and of course, despite being the oldest and largest non-profit in America, completely horrendous pay, even for social work; unless, of course, you're an executive. then you take home $100k+ / year for badly running an org that happens to have a really famous brand
Honestly, while the power of the brand has kept them afloat during years of instability, reckless spending, and corrupt management, I cannot honestly say that I believe this non-profit will either disappear or vastly diminish in size if they continue as they have.
