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CARING COMMUNITIES

Red Cross to the rescue for years to come

Cheryl Makin
@CherylMakin
  • In April 2012, the American Red Cross officially reorganized nationwide.
  • For New Jersey, the reorganization dismantled numerous chapters and created two regions — North and South.
  • Many streamlining changes were made for the betterment of those the Red Cross serves.
  • The Red Cross’ network of volunteers, employees and donors share a mission of five core service areas.

Whether it is answering a call for help around the corner or around the world, the Red Cross responds. Known for its work aiding in disaster situations, much of the humanitarian organizations’ day-to-day work is preventative, supportive and educational.

Founded by Clara Barton in 1881, the American Red Cross shelters, feeds and provides emotional support to victims of disasters, supplies about 40 percent of the nation’s blood, teaches skills that save lives such as first aid or CPR, provides international humanitarian aid and supports military members and their families. Providing relief inside the U.S., the Red Cross is the designated U.S. affiliate of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

But like any century-plus organization, there comes a time when the way to do business is reviewed, and as a result, transformed.

About two years ago, the Red Cross officially reorganized nationwide. In the state, it was divided into two regions — North and South. Previously, in the northern area alone, the Red Cross operated with 12 individual chapters running independently under the national organization, said Diane Concannon, chief communications officer of the Red Cross North New Jersey region.

“Each had its own budget, payroll, Board of Directors,” she said. “Each provided its own service dependent on the need for the community.”

Many streamlining changes were made for the betterment of those that the Red Cross serves, Concannon said.

“With things like disaster relief and fire response and service to armed forces some areas didn’t need that much service,” she said. “Some would be fund raising heavily because of the areas they were in. They would develop programs in the community with those funds, where another was struggling and could not survive and meet the needs in a disaster.”

The resulting mergers and consolidations, which occurred nationally, made large areas “all one type of cooperative region,” Concannon aid.

Geographically, it made more sense to break it up the state into two regions of 12 counties and nine counties each, she said. The North region includes Hunterdon, Middlesex, Somerset and Union as well as Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Mercer, Morris, Passaic, Sussex and Warren, with a combined population of 5.7 million.

Three base chapters remain in the North region — Central New Jersey in Princeton, Crossroads in Summit and Northern New Jersey in Fairfield.

“Our disaster services department is all one region,” she said. “There are disaster program managers that oversee specific counties for disaster response but they all work together. For instance, with the case of the huge fire in North Brunswick, there is a specific disaster program manager overseeing that, but they have the resources of the entire region.”

The evolution of how the Red Cross operates is ongoing, as resources are continually evaluated. For example, the region’s leaders are beginning to look at the buildings in their footoprint to determine what is needed and what could be spun off. Long-term, the organization also is reviewing what non-core mission services and program should be given to other agencies so that the Red Cross can be true to the core reason for its existence.

First-hand knowledge

Michael Prasad of Fanwood knows the impact of the consolidation from the ground. As first a volunteer for two years and a full-time employee since 2008, Prasad was involved with the Tri-County chapter based in Plainfield. As a member of a Disaster Action Team, Prasad responded to fires, floods and building collapses. He then became the Emergency Services director for the chapter.

“We covered 21 communities. Fifteen were in Union County, three in Somerset and three in Middlesex,” said Prasad, who is now the Disaster Support Functions director for North Jersey Region. “But, we had three separate chapters operating out of Union County and another three covering parts of Somerset too.”

For Prasad, the consolidations and mergers that occurred were a blessing that made sense.

“I was there for the merging of Elizabeth onto Plainfield and Plainfield into Westfield and that into Union County and then Union County into the larger region that covers all 12 counties,” he said. “For a disaster, for example, it helped to cover the big important things, such as communications. Now, we are speaking with one voice. Before, we had three different chapters. So, when county officials wanted to talk to the Red Cross they had to talk to three different people. It is much easier to talk to one executive or one disaster director or one disaster partner.”

Prasad said that logistically, the change also has been beneficial from an inventory control standpoint. Previously, each chapter had its own supplies. Scaled down to two regions, the redundancy is gone.

“We know where things are and things can be strategically deployed based on where disasters happen,” he said.

Five core missions

The Red Cross’ network of volunteers, employees and donors share a mission of preventing and relieving suffering, in the U.S. and around the world, through five core service areas: Disaster Cycle Services, Service to the Armed Forces (SAF), Blood Services, Health and Safety Services and International Services.

According to Concannon, the North Jersey Region trains and mobilizes more than 3,330 volunteers who support the delivery of services in the community. In 2014, they:

• Responded to 494 local home fires, helping 1,130 displaced families with emergency assistance

• Collected 25,420 units of blood through blood drives and Red Cross Blood Donation Centers

• Provided 1,877 military family case services with emergency messages, helping families find assistance and/or get counseling and referrals

• Trained 60,441 individuals with life-saving skills in preparedness, CPR, AED use, first aid and aquatics

Each of the five core services are distinct and equally important to the Red Cross’ overall mission, Concannon said. SAF includes emergency communications, social activities at veterans homes such as the Lyons campus of the Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care System in Bernards and the N.J. Veterans Memorial Home in the Menlo Park section of Edison and working with homeless veterans.

The processing and distribution of blood and blood products comes under Blood Services. There are two Red Cross Blood Donor Centers, one in Princeton and the other Fairfield, and throughout the year blood drives are conducted at businesses, schools, organizations and agencies.

Educational programs include Fire Prevention, First Aid, AED, CPR, Aquatics, Lifeguard, Learn To Swim and Babysitting. Those classes can be held “anywhere and everywhere out in the community as well as within companies who are authorized providers,” Concannon said.

Much of the work done by the American Red Cross International Services began with the Holocaust.

“We reconnected with family members overseas or worked to find out what happened with loved ones,” Concannon said. “Today, international services reconnects families during war torn times, like in the Ukraine currently. Family members here are trying to find out if family members there are OK. This also comes into play during a international disaster.”

The 2017 plan

As a result of the reorganization, the North Jersey Region aims to strengthen programs and services across the region by focusing on the organization’s core mission.

Divisional Vice President for the Northeast Mathieu Nelessen said the Red Cross is transforming its operations nationwide to meet the growing demand for its services while continuing to make the best use of donor dollars. As part of this focus on core services, the North Jersey Region researched options to transition some non mission-related services to other organizations already providing those services within the community, with the target year of 2017.

“We have been looking to transition those to other partners and making sure that the clients who did receive those non-core services don’t see any service interruption,” said Nelessen, who came on as Regional CEO at the start of the reorganization in 2012.

Input from volunteers, board members and community leaders is part of the process.

“We are not cutting them out, just moving them over,” Concannon said. “That’s why we have dedicated a long time to it. Each individual program in the area is specific so we are working with groups in those areas and taking everything into consideration for the clients so we can transition smoothly into other programs. It is a a process that will take some time but it is all about the client.”

Over the long history of the Red Cross, some of the chapters had developed specialized programs. For instance, in the Somerville area, which was the Greater Somerset Chapter, there was a transportation program.

“This was for veterans or medical needs for the elderly,” Concannon said. “As part of the reorganization and our focus on only the five core missions, those were transitioned over to other agencies or organizations that provide similar services in Somerset years ago.”

According to Concannon, the process is going smoothly with only a program “here and there” still needing a good fit. Programs in Middlesex, Somerset, Hunterdon and Union have already transitioned, she said.

Reorganization ready for Superstorm Sandy

Nelessen credits American Red Cross CEO Gail J. McGovern with looking at the organization’s operations through “the lens of being a professor in the Harvard University MBA program and years of corporate experience.

“She is really looking at the organization as the biggest humanitarian organization in the world and the most trusted brand in the world,” he said. “We needed to rebuild the platform and the operations in which this organization runs to become more efficient, to deliver services more efficiently and to be the better stewards of our dollar.”

“At our core is our presence in the community,” he said. “The structure of these multiple chapters wasn’t a structure that was conducive to being universal to how we deliver our service and most efficient. Our response for Sandy was a lot easier to coordinate. Having two disaster leads as opposed to 15 or 20 for each chapter. Our CEO has rebuilt that platform into 62 regions and now we deliver those core services more efficiently and look much more uniform across the nation.”

Nelessen said integrating a number of chapters has resulted in a functionalized region.

“Instead of there being eight disaster officers, there is one regional disaster officer,” he said. “When you do that, you have a lot more consistency.”

As the reorganization officially occurred in April 2012, Concannon said the Red Cross could focus in on their core missions immediately. That made a big difference during Superstorm Sandy, which hit in October 2012.

“When Sandy hit, statewide we all worked together,” she said. “Rather than nine different chapters in the north alone, you were looking at two regions. All of our warehousing and logistics were combined. Even before the storm, we were able to know what we had and where it was. It was all put together so when Sandy was approaching, it was at one source rather than housed at nine different chapters.”

This coordination overflowed into the volunteer aspect as well, she said.

“It was such a huge operation,” she said. “We did one big call out and had one big coordinated effort as far as shelters and who is going to work what, staffing, shifts, etc. All our resources were in place before Sandy. And that did make a huge difference for us and the operation.”

Next step for the Red Cross

Recently promoted to Divisional Vice President for the Northeast, which includes the area from South Jersey to Maine, Nelessen led much of the 2017 planning. Nelessen said that the Red Cross has “taken a hard look at our core programs and expanded our core programs, but we have brand-new and exciting volunteer opportunities.”

“Part of our strategic plan for 2017 is to build out a brand-new layer and level of volunteer opportunities in the organization,” he said. “It is much easier to define the volunteer needs through the lens of building out through a preparedness or response group of activities that are consistent across the geography. It’s really important in that the service that someone receives from a house fire in Milford or in Lambertville or in Somerville or in Suffern, is identical.”

Nelessen said that because the Red Cross is so dependent “on a generous and enormous and smart work force of volunteers,” it is now rebuilding a volunteer workforce in the Northeast region.

“Now, it is time to go back and further develop our volunteer work force by building out meaningful opportunities for them that just look a little bit different now because of the scope and area of our region,” he said. “We are focused on re-engaging our whole new volunteer work force in addition to the more than 3,000 people we already have in the North New Jersey region. We are going into schools and working with clubs, youth groups and youth councils to build a brand new force and address new leaders. This new and additional work force can help deliver the mission moving forward.”

Staff Writer Cheryl Makin: 732-565-7256; cmakin@mycentraljersey.com

There are many ways people can volunteer with the Red Cross in their local community. The Red Cross is always looking for people with various backgrounds, talents, and skill levels. To find opportunities to volunteer, visit redcross.org/support/volunteer or call 609-951-8550.

For more information, please visit redcross.org. Learn more about the Red Cross Home Fire Preparedness Campaign and access free fire safety resources at redcross.org/firesafety. Follow the North Jersey Region on Twitter @RedCrossNorthNJ