By Mary Jo Blackwood, American Red Cross of Colorado, Public Affaitrs
The American Red Cross is in the business of preparing for, preventing and responding to disasters. The preparedness speaks to our long history of training, to give people the resiliency and knowledge to prepare themselves and others for any emergencies that may arise. The COVID era is no different. Training and preparation have continued as needed with some pivots toward creative virtual settings
In this, our last part of the Red Cross Pivot, we look at training, Biomedical Services and fundraising. What we saw demonstrated that the Red Cross is strong in this our 140th year and positioned to continue on for the next 140 years!
Education and Training
Sound the Alarm is another program with a successful pivot during COVID. Normally, volunteers go into homes and do fire prevention education while our partner firefighters install new ten-year smoke detectors. Volunteers are now doing that education virtually or standing out in the yard or on the porch in their masks having these safety discussions.
Troy Staples, Director of Preparedness and Resiliency for the CO Wyoming Region, says the long term goal is to make sure Red Cross can delivered all our preparedness programs under any conditions, whether a pandemic, a hurricane or some unforeseeable catastrophe. Besides disaster and first-aid offerings, he cites two one-hour virtual public education offerings posted on the website and accessible by anyone interested in them:
Business Operations
One of the big pivots during COVID has been taking care of business when staff and volunteers can’t come into the office. Mary Black, the Director of Business Operations for the Region says the key to our successful pivot has been the ability to work remotely. She credits the IT department with making that happen. “We have learned to conduct business outside the office. Staff and volunteers are asked to only enter the office for mission-critical functions. People are scheduled and staggered to prevent too many people being in a closed space at once.”
Black says they have a few things they must do on-site, such as process mail and donations, and working with vendors to address mechanical issues in the building or inspection needs. Overall, they have learned that they have the capacity to work remotely and keep volunteers engaged by having regular team meetings.
She looks forward to when they can again make more use of the building because of the collaborative aspects of their office space in Denver. Besides Red Cross operations, they provide space in the building for various Chambers of Commerce: Hispanic, LGBTQ, Black, Asian, and American Indian. The long Red Cross tradition of collaboration ensures that all funds raised go farther because we don’t duplicate services already being provided by our community partners.
Fundraising
Probably the most concerning thing to any non-profit during the isolation of a global pandemic is the ability to raise funds for mission services. Happily, the Red Cross went into the pandemic financially healthy and has found, while they have changed how they do fundraising, the community and our business partners have given generously.
We sat down with Dani Mulhern, the event manager for the CO/WY Region, Sophia Conti, Director of Development and Megan Calvert, Regional Philanthropy Officer, to discuss what fundraising has looked like over the last year.
Disaster Funding: Last year saw a long and destructive wildfire season, with many evacuations. Changing to the COVID model of non-congregate sheltering meant an increase in overall cost, and the need for greater giving to cover that cost. While some corporate donors had to cut back their funding, others upped their contributions, and individual donations soared. People who could not go out to volunteer saw giving money as a good way to volunteer remotely.
Biomedical services also changed. In order to protect donors and staff, more and smaller blood drives had to be held and there was more fundraising activity around those drives. What Biomedical Services did also changed. They added testing for antibodies and a new product line of convalescent plasma to people with COVID.
Fundraising Events: Their major regional event has been the heroes’ event where they honor everyday heroes and community heroes for their contributions. By not having an in-person event, fundraising staff had to get creative. They changed their four in-person hero events to one virtual heroes’ event to reach the entire community.
They did on-line features every day showcasing a particular hero nominee leading up to the main event. Fundraising asks appeared in each segment. Then heroes were narrowed down to six, and they were announced along with a seventh hero from the community heroes during an on-line event that people could dial into. They also included a silent auction. What they found surprised them:
- 300 people tuned in virtually for the big event and stayed for the whole event.
- They had more people donating and participating from remote parts of Colorado and Wyoming than would normally not have been able to participate. They hope to keep those new participants engaged.
- They raised $575,000.
Financial development staff and volunteers were excited about how well fundraising has gone during this crazy time. Donors appreciate that because our workforce is 90 percent volunteer, 90 cents of every dollar goes to direct client services. It appears the American Red Cross is ready for the next 140 years! Not surprising, our staff and volunteers say, because our business is being able to prepare for disasters. That’s what we do. And we do it well.
In order to protect donors and staff, more and smaller blood drives had to be held and there was more fundraising activity around those drives.