The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement Principles

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Table of Contents

Red Cross: Its Mission and Purpose
Red Cross Crisis in Haiti: Exploring the Facts and Consequences
Identifying Specific Goals and Their Rationale
Defining Steps for Achieving the Established Goals
Evaluation Plan: Assessing the Outcomes
References

Red Cross: Its Mission and Purpose

The American Red Cross is a humanitarian, not-for-profit organization that has been organize by volunteers and guided by its Congressional Charter, as well as the fundamental principles of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (The American Red Cross, 2011). The venture provides help to people who became the victims of natural disasters and catastrophe so as to prevent and react to the emergencies.

According to the Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross, humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary services, and universality are five main pillars shaping the organization’s main mission and purposes (The American Red Cross, 2011). Hence, the Red Cross has been created to provide assistance to people irrespective of race, nationality and social status to prevent and diminish the consequences of disaster.

Its core purpose is to support victims of disasters and protect their health (The American Red Cross, 2011). Finally, organization promotes a message about cooperation, understanding, friendship and lasing peace all over the world. The movement remains independent because it is not subject to government and the laws of different countries.

Red Cross Crisis in Haiti: Exploring the Facts and Consequences

Two years ago, the population of Haiti suffered from a 7.0 earthquake leading to significant destructions and leaving millions of people without home. Minnesota, along with other U.S. states, responded actively to the disaster and donated a significant sum of money for improving the situation in Haiti.

Now, the Red Cross has introduced a two-year report on the efforts and actions taken in Haiti to relieve the population (MyFox, 2012). The report presents significant progress in front of serious challenge, but some of the presented facts can lead to negative publicity concerning the action plan (MyFox, 2012).

The point is that the American Red Cross got nearly $ 486 million in donations whereas $ 330 million were spent only on Haiti recovery efforts (MyFox, 2012). One the one hand, many questions arise concerning the remaining sum of money. One the other hand, the Red Cross’s campaign has not been completed yet and, therefore, there are no reasons for rushing in conclusions.

Identifying Specific Goals and Their Rationale

As the world-known non-profit organization, the Red Cross should introduce a new form of reporting through publicly presenting information about financial matters. In such a way, it is possible to enhance information transparency and accuracy to ensure the population of their donations invested to prevent disasters.

Specifically, the report does not only improve communication and relation with outside stakeholders, but also attract more investors. Sustainability reporting can also enhance the Red Cross reputation and contribute to effective alleviation of critical situations.

Introducing sustainability reporting system can help the organizations several goals. To begin with, the Red Cross can uncover a number of opportunities for development, as well as provide a full picture of existing problems in the country and outside it. Second, organizational performance and sustainability can improve organization’s relation with the most influential investors and monitor all environmental, social, and economical aspects of development influencing the activities and efforts initiated by the Red Cross.

Finally, external disclosure of information can increase chances of the organization to create a powerful network for eliminating the consequences of natural disasters. In addition, the new reporting system can sustain organization’s reputation at an appropriate level and increase its influence all over the world.

Defining Steps for Achieving the Established Goals

In order to achieve the identified goals, a specific framework should be established. A changing pattern can be introduced through a number of steps. First of all, it is purposeful to identify the main target of the organization, which will be environment, people, community, and human resource management (Global Reporting Initiative, 2011).

Second, it is necessary to organize a survey to define how people evaluate the action and effects presented by the organization (Global Reporting Initiative, 2011). Third, organization should focus on the most problematic areas to define the main strengths and weaknesses of those. Finally, the Red Cross should establish effective schemes of responding to disasters, as well as plan the reports on efforts and reliefs within shorter periods of time.

Introducing a management approach can significantly increase productivity and performance, as well as attract more volunteers to take part in different missions. Reporting about the impact of Red Cross activities on the community should also be launches for the American to have a better idea of the importance of developing the organization.

More importantly, the above-presented principles and steps are congruent with the mission and purpose of the organization. The only difference is that it provides a transparent picture of all operations. With regard to the Red Cross crisis in Haiti, the following framework can be presented:

Introduce a detailed report on the financial resources used during the disaster;
Provide an account on the remaining sum of money that can be distributed for reconstruction of buildings and technological devices for improving safety and quality of life in Haiti.
Establish new principle of mutual interaction between people investing money and people receiving help. Specifically, it is important for investors to know how their money is used for eliminating the disaster.

Evaluation Plan: Assessing the Outcomes

Many companies, including non-profit organization, strive to work out effective strategy for managing people and monitoring daily operations and activities. Because the American Red Cross is a powerful organization possessing a great number volunteers working for them, it is rational to pay attention to such issues as diversity, information exchange, and public influence on the organizational performance.

The introduction of the action plan should provide the corresponding correction to the established mission and purpose of an organization. More importantly, the given plan can provide a solid platform for further development in terms of information spread among mass media. The latter should be carefully considered because failure to establish favorable relation with mass media can lead to shaping negative reputation, which can also influence organization’s activities.

In this respect, consistence and transparency can help the Haiti population to recover after the earthquake in the shortest possible time. By changing the policy to the employees/volunteers, the organization acquires greater chances to receive recognition and reputation among the external environment. Hence, volunteers will be more concerned with the outside environment; more importantly, they become more consistent while implanting the Global Reporting Initiative principles of managing reports.

Indeed, sustainability reporting fully meets the needs of the organization because it is also directed at improving social, economic and environment climate. So, the accomplishment of the defined goal will lead an organization to an upper level of development and provide more incentives to work better.

References

Global Reporting Initiative (2011). G3.1 Guidelines. Web.

MyFox. (2012). What Happened to You Haiti Earthquake Donation? Web.

The American Red Cross. (2011). Mission Statement. Web.

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