What the Red Cross and Big Business Have in Common

Imagine having your product ready to go but having no idea where your retail stores were on any given day, or predicting where those stores would be, but discovering within eight hours that all their locations had changed. And what if your employees met for the first time on the first day, not knowing one another’s strengths and weaknesses?

Those are the kinds of challenges the American Red Cross faces, using a volunteer workforce to provide disaster relief whenever and wherever needed, said Jack McGuire, interim president and CEO. McGuire spoke to students April 25 at Hyde Park Center as part of the Distinguished Speakers Series. The event was cohosted by the Harris School of Public Policy.

The Red Cross operates in many ways like a Fortune 500 company, McGuire said. Its revenue will be $5.5 billion this year. “Clearly we have to follow good sound business principals,” he said. “We have to account for the things we do. We have to manage effectively and efficiently.”

In the year before Katrina, which had marked the largest hurricane season in 124 years, the Red Cross helped 73,000 families. In Katrina alone, it helped nearly 1.3 million families. “If you look at Katrina, the geography we dealt with was about the size of Great Britain,” McGuire said. Typical ways of doing things, such as casework, no longer fit. “We essentially had to create a $6 billion enterprise in two days and it had to be effective at that point,” he said.

The Red Cross joined with computer companies to come up with an enrollment system that could be accessed through the Internet. On one particular day, the Red Cross enrolled more people than it had in the entire prior year, McGuire said.

The Red Cross has expanded its capacity. But new technology needs to be donated. And the organization must grow in its cultural approaches to serve a wider variety of people, he said.

 —Mary Sue Penn