It would have been hard in the late 1980s and 1990s to think of an organization more under seige and burdened down by a bad image than the Canadian Red Cross.
The tainted blood scandal threatened both the agency's long tradition of collecting and distributing blood for Canadians, but also its fund-raising and disaster relief work, water safety programs, and every other activity it was involved in.
Fast forward to today, and it's hard to think of another non-profit that is doing as good a job of maintaining goodwill and strong relationships. After staring oblivion in the face, the Canadian Red Cross cut its losses, got out of the blood business, dug deep and rediscovered its core identity, and has been going from strength to strength ever since.
Its relevance is reinforced every time there is a natural (or unnatural) disaster -- the Quebec ice storm, the Red River flood, the Ontario blackout. The organization has emerged from the frenzy of fund-raising and relief efforts around the South Asia tsunamis with a 10-year bankroll to fund ongoing, meaningful aid to the region, and a powerful image in Canadians' minds.
Canadian individuals, companies and governments donated $160 million toward Red Cross tsunami relief (plus federal government matching funds on some of that amount), contributing to the $1.4 billion donated globally to Red Cross and Red Crescent societies.
A decade ago, the Canadian Red Cross was the blood agency that also did other stuff. Now, it stands out as the organization that responds when bad things happen. Barring some unforeseen organizational hand grenade, the future fund-raising, service delivery and image building potential for the Canadian Red Cross shows a lot of room for growth and stabilization.
(No, I don't volunteer for the Red Cross, but I did apply to work for them once.)
Update: The first draft of this wasn't very clear about the fact the CRC is no longer in the business of collecting, preparing and distributing blood products.
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