"Organized" Charities

The title of this blog post is completely wrong. It should read "Unorganized and Completely Inept Charities." Included in that list would be the world famous ones too that every knows.

BUZZCOCKS - WHAT DO I GET?

Probably top of the list would be the Red Cross. In an article entitled, Japan Red Cross? Too Slow to Help Out I castigated that organization for extremely slow reaction in helping those affected by the Great Tohoku earthquake in Tsunami in northern Japan on March 11, 2011. I wrote:

".....at the time of the writing of this article, more than one month after the crisis began, Japan Red Cross has not allocateda single yen to the disaster victims. On the web page of the Japan Red Cross, in a post dated April 15th, 2011, they had finally announced that they had decided how much money will be allocated to which areas - so that the monies can then be sent to committees in those areas to be decided how they should be allocated! Odd, but something here seems to reek of bureaucracy.

This is outrageous. 

I thought an organization like Japan Red Cross would be acting immediately to relieve those in desperate need rather than debating in long meetings what local chamber gets how much money or making sure their bookkeepers have their antiquated accounting in order by the end of each month. But, if this event and past scandals such as the poor handling of the relief efforts for the Katrina disaster or Haiti is any indicator, the glacial speed of reaction to crises by the Red Cross leaves much to be desired. 

When people and small children are suffering and starving in the freezing cold they need help right now, not after six to eight weeks. They certainly need help quicker than the former government bureaucrats at cushy positions at the Japan Red Cross seem to be capable of delivering."

Over the last three years, I've been helping out with many charities and organizations. I have seen just about every major charity in Japan running in some form or another. I must say that I thought "Rock Challenge Japan" and "Hands on Tokyo" were the only ones that I felt satisfied the minimum level of professionalism I want in a charity.

A charity is a business, try to run it that way

Some of the others wouldn't even return my phones calls... And that was after calling several times. I won't name them.

From helping many of these charities I have come to recognize one things that runs through most of them and that is, while many people seems to be well-meaning, they are completely and totally incompetent, have zero business experience and do not understand even the most basic principles of the term: ROI when approaching sponsors and asking for donations or support.

ROI stands for "Return on Investment." It is so basic that I am astounded that, out of all these charities that I have cooperated with, I have only met a very few people who seem to grasp this idea.

ROI goes like this: I am a big corporate sponsor. You are a charity. You ask me to support you. Sounds like a good idea. OK, what do I get out of helping you?

And, no. Your "Thanks" just doesn't cut it anymore. When sponsors are few and far between we need a much better effort than the, frankly speaking, half-assed efforts we've been getting from most charities up until now.

Yesterday I had a guy ask me to try to arrange travel tickets for his charity that will be held in 7 weeks time. I was so surprised. There's just no way that can be done. Maybe Clark Kent could pull that one off, but Mike Rogers can't.

Recently, I arranged airfare for two to London on British Airways for a school charity at St. Mary's International School that will be held second week of May, but I started organizing that deal over three months ago. With that, I made a proper professional quality business presentation on Power Point along with several pages of documentation and presented that to the client along with several follow up phone calls and dozens of emails.

The guy who asked me to help yesterday? Nothing. No data, details, nothing. In fact, it was the first time I had heard of it.

Anyway, I can't help them. It's totally impossible as it is way too late. Talk about poor planning! (I've mentioned many times that 80% of success lies in good planning). I then asked my friend about what sort of metrics that the sponsor could be offered? Meaning, what sort of visibility on flyers, posters, etc. I was told that the flyers were already made and distributed that there would be no visibility for the sponsor at all.

Now, if there is no ROI benefit for the sponsor, why in the world does anyone think a sponsor is going to say "OK" to something like this? There's no way. 

I also refuse to look stupid in front of a client by even asking such a dumb and ridiculous question. Just because the charity is unorganized and fouled up, doesn't mean that I am willingly going to go there and look stupid too! 

ROI! ROI! ROI! What does the client get in return for their help investment? That's the only question that matters. This is not fun and it is not a game. It is a business decision!

There's many reasons why corporations have rules concerning charities and standards concerning ROI. The biggest one I can think of right off the top of my head is to prevent abuse. I mean, if there's no rules concerning these sorts of activities, then what's to stop a, country manager from giving away a thousand dollars of goods to, say, her best friend's ladies luncheon group or their son's kindergarten school function?

I don't write this blog post to blast some of these charities but I write this to help you folks out (I write it directly too as I haven't the time or patience to be giving out free advice all the time). Some basic common sense and a basic understanding of this simple concept of ROI - as well as some thought put into, "Gee, if the sponsor supports us, what kind of bang do they get for their buck?" Will help separate the charities that receive from the charities that don't.

The bottom line? What does the client company get out of sponsoring and helping your charity and how does the in-charge at that company justify to his boss and book-keeping manager the fact that he wants to approve giving you thousands of dollars worth of support in cash or in prizes? 

Sponsors need something to show for their efforts. You had better figure out how to give it to them too if you want their help. Trust that, as time goes by, the charities who do figure this out and take my advice to heart will be the ones who get. The others who fail to recognize this common sense fact of life might as well close their doors.

Here's one good idea: On a recent relief trip to the tsunami hit area, my partners who helped me organized, made sure we created a top-quality professional video of the effort and we placed sponsors and supporters names at the end of the video with company logos.

Now, when I want to arrange any sort of charity to help the earthquake and tsunami sufferers, all I need to do is direct people to that video on YouTube and they can see for themselves what their ROI is. See the video Ishinomaki - Black Water here.

Compare that with your charity that is asking for free airline tickets to support your event or festival, yet you can't even give me metrics on how many posters are to be printed or where my company logo will be placed.

In this day and age where corporate sponsorships are getting harder and harder to come by, a better understanding of their needs is critical. 

Everyone already knows what the charities need. That doesn't need explaining too much. Explain to me, the client, "What do I get?"

Perhaps Japan Red Cross Not To Blame?

Whenever I screw things up or make an error, I want t be the first to say, "I'm sorry. I was wrong. I made a mistake."

BEATLES - HELP!

In the case of my recent blog criticizing the Japan Red Cross for delays in getting relief funds to the victims of the Tohoku earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident, I may have been mistaken.

Marriott Hotel in Ginza, Tokyo Japan

Mr. Hiro Kosugi, who is a good friend of mine and who is also the Marriott International Regional Director for Global Sales for Japan & Korea, writes in an explanation of the situation. This is an excellent rebuttal and so well written that I asked for his permission to post the entire mail. Mr. Kosugi says: 

On your blog about the Japanese Red Cross Society, I totally agree with you on their overall bureaucratic slowness to respond. However, I saw some points that you either missed, or did not touched upon that your readers may misunderstand. I hesitated to write this email, but I thought I should be the one to point them out instead of someone else you do not know.

The process of the fund allocation was clearly stated on JRC's web site as early as March 14. I cut and pasted their message from their website:

If you wish to send your donations directly to the Japanese Red Cross Society, you can donate online, or direct your funds to the following bank accounts. All funds received under this account will be transferred to the Distribution Committee, which is formed around the local governments of the disaster-affected prefectures. These funds will be distributed directly among the affected population. We are currently requesting the government to establish the Distribution Committee as soon as possible. - JRC News on 3/14/2011

As you can see, what took placed on April 15 is not that "the JRC finally decided to allocate the money", but rather "the JRC was finally given the instruction on how to allocate the money."

The real problems were 1) the time that the federal government took to create the Fund Distribution Committee and 2) the time this committee took to make a decision. Please note that it was on April 7, when Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano announced that the government decided to set up this committee. I hardly say this is the fault of the Red Cross on this particular case. It is the current Japanese Government's yet another mismanagement example.

This recovery efforts will take unbelievably long time. The money the JRCS gave to the Distribution Committees is supposed to be the first of many such monetary assistances given to the victims up north. I just hope that no money will be wasted while executing this project.

Also, your blog made it look like the JRC did not do anything until they finally transfer the money to the Distribution Committee, but that is not true, either. For this Tohoku Disaster, they have dispatched approx. 550 Emergency Response/Triage/other relief units to date, distributed 125,000 blankets, 26,000 emergency kits, etc. While I am not the right person to determine whether or not the amount of the initial relief efforts were sufficient and appropriate, JRC has done something between March 11 and April 15 for sure. 

Incidentally, I'd like you to know that the money to fund their disaster relief efforts come from their general operational budget. And this is where the majority of criticism on JRC are usually targeted in the non-emergency time.

The Japanese Red Cross Society draws their operational funds from general public like tax. You may have your personal experience that your neighborhood association come around once a year to ask - demand? - for a donation to the Red Cross with typical suggested price of 500 yen per household. The money collected from this effort is the one of the two main income sources for their operational fund. Many people complain about the "compulsory" nature of this fund collection method. I do give this money, but do not agree with the method, either.

At the moment, I am fighting my own company's bureaucracy in getting a proper amount of funding for our CSR efforts in Japan. I have been thinking long and hard about what a hotel company like Marriott can do to make a difference in the lives of these poor folks in the Tsunami-stricken region. I think I found an answer, and am trying to organize a big, company-wide project. But unfortunately, we do not have our own hotel in Japan - all are franchised, you see - and, therefore, we do not have our own employees suffering from the disaster. For my company and the Marriott Foundation, it lacks the usual priorities they look for before funding a project. When we faced Hurricanes in New Orleans and/or Cancun where we have many of our own properties, it was much easier to organize a special relief campaign…. But I will continue my efforts. I will tell you what we will be doing once my effort starts to bear some fruits. 


Thank you so very much, Mr. Kosugi. If I am mistaken about Red Cross efforts, I stand corrected. I commend you on your efforts and think it is wonderful that such a fine organization such as Marriot Hotels have decided to make the effort to do something to cooperate in the relief. I applaud your efforts.

If I made it seem that the Japan Red Cross didn't do any efforts, and they in fact did, then I am wrong. Let me though say that I have been provided with information that was taken by a direct telephone call to Japan Red Cross and some background researching that seems to indicate that they hadn't done anything at all. I am not at liberty, at this time, to name the publication that researched this information for me as I am under the impression that they are going to write an expose about Japan Red Cross activities.


Their information came to me like this:

Mike,

Here is some info that our researcher dug up from calling the Japan Red Cross, and more.

XXXXXXX

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX>
Date: 2011/4/18
Subject: Let me know if you need further info.
To: XXXXXXXXXXXXX>

According the　JRCS’ｓ　PR: The delay in sending out genkin donations to disaster affected prefectures (義援金 Genkin - money will be given in cash to survivors) maybe due to the fact that the Donation Allocation Committee came together on Friday April 8 for their first meeting since the earthquake. (Members include JRC, Red Feather/JCC + reps from 15 prefectures)

Also, the earthquake was large-scale, affecting 15 prefectures so it
took (time) to organize the committee.

First money transfer:
On April 12(Tues) JRCS was requested by the allocation committee of
Fukushima, Tochigi and Nagano prefectures and was then transferred to each prefecture's allocation committee on the 13th: 

Fukushima received Y23 bn (Y23,006,000,000)
Tochigi                   Y252m (Y     252,150,000)
Nagano                  Y  19m (Y       19,500,000)

2nd:
Miyagi (Y15,611,680,000)
Niigata (Y      16,710,000)
Saitama(Y     10,320,000)

I also found a blog site that gives us more insight on this issue - in English.

★http://sarajeans-notes.blogspot.com/2011/04/basic-info-on-gienkin-donations-in.html
Excerpt:

"At 4 weeks nothing has been sent yet - a few main issues
1. Systematic problems - how to verify?
Evacuees often have no ID or proof where they are from, who they are.
City halls have also been destroyed, staff killed - no records to check in many cases in some evacuation centers.

2. Scale issues - this time 15 prefectures have been affected
Some evacuees are housed far from home, no local government
representative to help them

* Kobe EQ damage was concentrated in and around Hyogo prefecture 


So there seems to be some discrepancy between the two stories. Nevertheless, if the Japan Red Cross has done something, I stand corrected thank to Mr. Hiro Kosugi. But, even comparing both sets of information, it seems true that Japan Red Cross has still not gotten any cash directly into the hands of the survivors at this time.



I sent Mr. Kosugi a copy of the mail I had received from the magazine. That mail thanked him and added:

I think this is a wonderful discussion to bring to the public attention. It not only makes people more aware of the hurdles, it might also motivate the government and Red Cross to reform their system to be quicker. Who knows? Anyway discussion is always a good thing.

Perhaps after bringing this to light and then back and forth discussions, something good will come of it.

We'll see.

I am so happy to get this type of well-written and logical rebuttal. I am also quite happy to admit I am wrong when the occasion arises. My only recourse at this moment is to apologize as I suspect that the Japan Red Cross did deliver some blankets and a minor number of goods - so I cannot insinuate that they did absolutely nothing.


I think, though, I still should stand by my final comment that I made in the blog post in question and that is, "There has got to be a better way." 


Let's hope this public discussion will help services such as the government and relief agencies to rethink their methods and to streamline their systems so that those in need do not have to wait even one second longer than is necessary.

Japan Red Cross? Too Slow to Help Out

The toll of the terrible tragedy in the Tohoku region of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami has yet to be fully accounted for. As of the time of the writing of this article, The Japanese National Police Agency has confirmed 13,778 deaths, 4,916 injured, and 14,175 people missing across eighteen prefectures, as well as over 125,000 buildings damaged or destroyed. On top of this, in the middle of a freezing winter, while the snow fell, over 100,000 people were forced to live in evacuation centers.

Surely, as time goes by, the trauma and toll will rise. 

LOU REED - PERFECT DAY

Soon after the disaster hit images of the carnage and destruction of biblical proportions shocked the entire world. Who couldn’t feel the fear, desperation and utter hopelessness of the situation when viewing those images? 

This one event has taught a lesson to many as to who is really in charge of the earth and that is surely not technology or humankind; Mother Nature is undoubtedly in total control. 

There probably hasn’t been a natural event on this scale since the destruction of Pompeii where the Mount Vesuvius volcano erupted over the span of two days in 79 A.D. and destroyed that city under a pile of 6-meter-high ash and pumice. It wasn’t until 1,500 years later that the city, and the extent of the disaster, was discovered.

In the case of Ishinomaki and Kesenuma in Miyagi prefecture the fury of nature showed under an irresistible tsunami onslaught that crested at 10 meters high and obliterated an area of over 470 square kilometers in Japan.

Photo of downtown Ishinomaki taken one month after the tsunami

In the immediate aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake and the tsunami disaster good people from all over the world opened their hearts and pocketbooks for well over $156 million US dollars in relief monies donated to the Japan Red Cross alone. People who viewed this disastrous event from the safety of their homes wanted to immediately help out those poor men, women and children who had suffered, lost their livelihoods and loved ones and in the stricken region. 

Special: Is your charity missing out on handling potential 

sponsors and getting more donations?

Upon a recent trip to one of the hardest hit areas in Ishinomaki, at a center for disabled persons, I was told that the people in the area had nothing to eat for the first few days and one banana and one rice ball for next ten days after the ordeal! (See that relief effort here in a short documentary entitled: Ishinomaki – Black Water.)

Everyone who donated to the Japan Red Cross did so because they knew of the helplessness of the situation and they knew that the victims needed immediate relief as fast as possible. 

I thank everyone who donated. Never think, even for a second, that your kindness is not appreciated nor that your karma or your god... won’t someday reward you

Unfortunately, also at the time of the writing of this article, more than one month after the crisis began, Japan Red Cross has not allocated a single yen to the disaster victims. On the web page of the Japan Red Cross, in a post dated April 15th, 2011, they had finally announced that they had decided how much money will be allocated to which areas - so that the monies can then be sent to committees in those areas to be decided how they should be allocated! Odd, but something here seems to reek of bureaucracy.

This is outrageous. 

I thought an organization like Japan Red Cross would be acting immediately to relieve those in desperate need rather than debating in long meetings what local chamber gets how much money or making sure their bookkeepers have their antiquated accounting in order by the end of each month. But, if this event and past scandals such as the poor handling of the relief efforts for the Katrina disaster or Haiti is any indicator, the glacial speed of reaction to crises by the Red Cross leaves much to be desired. 

When people and small children are suffering and starving in the freezing cold they need help right now, not after six to eight weeks. They certainly need help quicker than the former government bureaucrats at cushy positions at the Japan Red Cross seem to be capable of delivering. Of course all collected monies and donations must be dutifully and faithfully accounted for as a matter of course, but when children are cold and starving they need relief now - not in one or two months after the books are closed.

One would hope that the Red Cross would be one of the quickest ways to personally help the victims by donating out of their own pockets. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case. It is a sad statement about the way the Red Cross operates that whenever these sorts of crises arises, there seems to be much more criticism than praise over Red Cross efforts.

There’s got to be a better way.

-Thanks to Michio Hashimoto for photo