May 16, 2002 | Read Time: 2 minutes
A key Republican senator who has been investigating numerous charities sent a letter last week to the American Red Cross requesting that the organization answer questions about its fund-raising tactics following the September terrorist attacks.
Iowa Sen. Charles E. Grassley said he had heard from colleagues in Congress and some of his constituents “that in major fund-raising drives, the Red Cross has been unclear about how it will use donations.”
The senator, the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, also inquired about the group’s financial reporting and its disaster-relief policies after September 11. The senator asked the charity to respond to his request by June 14.
Meanwhile, the American Red Cross has announced plans to lay off about 100 of the 1,500 employees at its national headquarters in Washington — part of a restructuring effort ordered by the interim chief executive officer, Harold J. Decker. Mr. Decker took over as head of the group after Bernadine P. Healy resigned in October, following public and Congressional criticism about the charity’s plans to use money raised after September 11 for some efforts not related to the attacks.
The layoffs came as some local chapters were reporting declines in fund raising. The national chapter derives about 24 percent of its annual budget from local chapters.
Some chapters are experiencing a 30-to-40-percent plunge in fund raising, but others have experienced increases, said Devorah Goldberg, a Red Cross spokeswoman.
The national organization will not know the full results of local fund-raising drives until September, she said.
In a separate development, former Sen. George J. Mitchell this month issued the first in a series of quarterly updates on the Red Cross’s September 11 recovery efforts. So far, the report said, the aid group has distributed $567-million of the more than $967-million it has raised.
The report by Senator Mitchell is available online at http://www.crossnet.org.
