According to its mission statement, "The American Red Cross prevents and alleviates human suffering in the face of emergencies by mobilizing the power of volunteers and the generosity of donors."
Approximately 90 percent of the American Red Cross membership is volunteer, drawing people from all ages, ethnicity, and background. These volunteers respond to nearly 70,000 disasters every year, mostly home and apartment fires. They also put on training programs and blood drives.
The Red Cross is a large national organization with fixed sets of stockpiled resources which they adapt and apply to each disaster response they face. They set up shelters, distribute emergency supply kits and provide food and medical service in the aftermath of disasters.
This organization does not claim to have new or novel way of responding to disasters, however their uniqueness lies in the sheer number of disasters of all sizes they respond to. This is best characterized by the information found on their page titled "Disaster Relief," which states the following:
"We respond to an emergency every 8 minutes
No one else does this: not the government, not other charities. From small house fires to multi-state natural disasters, the American Red Cross goes wherever we’re needed, so people can have clean water, safe shelter and hot meals when they need them most."The American Red Cross was founded in 1881 with the experiances of the Civil War still fresh on people's minds. After touring Europe and seeing the swiss Red Cross in action, Civil War nurse Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross to provide disaster relief and first aid both on the homefront and the front line. Early on, the Red Cross served to educate the public about topics such as first aid and water safety, while starting nursing programs and providing assistance to the military and military families. As new needs, such as blood donation, made themselves apparent, the Red Cross met these needs, starting donation programs and doing labratory research on the blood dontation technology and techniques starting in the 1960's.
Funding for the American Red Cross comes primarily from individual and corporate donations. They are funded by the people to serve the people.
The Red Cross opened a Red Cross R&D in 1961 to further existing research on blood component technology, blood safety, plasma-derived therapeutics, transfusion medicine, and biomedical science. Red Cross R&D has made accievements in the following areas, listed on their website:
The red cross relies on notification systems of disaster to mobilize their volunteers such as those created by FEMA, NOAA, and other goverment services, transportation infrastructure and technology to move supplies and people from place to place, established red cross infrastructure of supply stockpiles, specialized vehicles, and training centers.
With every new disaster it faces, the ARC draws much on its own research and the experiances of the Global Red Cross. Recent major domsetic disasters the ARC has faced include Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy,
One of the red cross' major concerns is the extreme differences in nature that can be found with almost all disasters, and being able to allocate the correct resources at the correct time. It is also a volunteer organization with funding primarily coming from donations, so being able to maintain its workforce and revenue is a constant challenge.