With the Christmas season approaching, big malls and shopping center will be packed with people searching for gifts for family and friends. Sometimes, you may run into a Red Kettle, run by the Salvation Army, known worldwide for "Doing the Most Good" to help those in need. Is this the truth?
Having worked as a regional accountant for seven weeks in October-November 2008 at one of their regions, I have a unique view into what the Salvation Army stands for. They let me go after I tried to use some professional judgment in getting my work done that went against their rules. My following comments are not meant as a bitter ex-employee, but rather as insights that can only be provided someone who has worked there and wants people to know what they are giving their money to. Obviously, a current employee would be foolish to criticize this organization while working there. Everyday I worked there, I was busy with accounting work entering transactions into their accounting software program as part of a new system with more standardized procedures. It actually appears that the Red Kettle is symbolic of administrative waste, bigotry towards gays, and environmental ignorance. There are lots of other charities, large and small, that deserve donations because they do great work to help the poor without these problems.
First, the administrative waste is striking. The following article shows that the Salvation Army has paid the price for putting together such a sophisticated accounting system.
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/06/salvation-army-receives-f_n_413792.html) Someone gave them a $25,000 fake check to one of their locations in South Carolina during last year's Christmas season. Its regional accounting system, in its complexity, resembles that of a multi-national corporation with billions of dollars per year in revenues. There were weekly required 10 percent support service checks from each service location to the Divisional Headquarters. Their financial statements contained other administrative costs, of which I had no time to discover their size, total cost, or proper classification. Within the first 3-4 weeks of working there, I could see massive inefficiencies in this system, which required an astounding amount of data re-entry. But, with all the work I had to do within the frame of very tight deadlines, I did not get a chance to use my strengths in finding and correcting these inefficiencies, such as individual bank accounts for each location. With each of its general ledger account numbers broken into four different parts comprising a total of 15 digits each, it easily has millions, if not billions, of different account number combinations. All for a region that takes in about $20 million in annual donations. It even has 40-50 different account codes for mail appeals, one of many ways it takes in donations. By contrast, some for-profit companies that I have worked for have a general ledger with only two parts to each account number for a total seven digits each. This was sufficient even for companies over $200 million in revenue.
The bigotry towards gays, the second thing these kettles represent, is perhaps the most offensive thing about this organization. While the Salvation Army is best known as a charity that helps homeless people and drug addicts, it is also an evangelical church with clear, hardened views on a number of issues. It has been known on occasion to deny assistance to gay people who are poor. It has also chosen to shut down its operations if it is required by local laws and regulations to provide benefits to domestic partners.
Environmental ignorance, the third part of what one is contributing to by dropping change into these kettles, maybe the most confusing part of all. With 17 different locations providing services to people in need throughout West Virginia, it would seem likely that they would hear about stories of people's water being polluted by mountaintop removal coal mining. After running searches at The Salvation Army's USA web site on global warming, climate change, mountaintop removal, and coal, I got no results. It seems like their National Commanders, Officers, and Soldiers have spent so much time reading the Bible and twisting passages to their preferences when they should be responding to crises caused by climate change.
Perhaps the most interesting thing to know about The Salvation Army is that the political views of its leaders do not necessarily reflect on the staff that work there. After running a search on OpenSecrets.org on it, I discovered that most of the donations by individuals who work there went to Democratic candidates. The one donation made by an executive listed on the site was to Jeff Perry, a Massachusetts Republican House candidate who lost on November 2nd.
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