Balancing Privacy, Vigilance

Accountability is at the very foundation of volunteer organizations that depend on Orange County residents to donate their money and time. Just ask the high school booster club and youth soccer organization that were burned a few years go by volunteers with sticky fingers.

That said, the local American Red Cross chapter ignited an understandable firestorm of protest by requiring 400 active volunteers to submit to possible background and credit checks. The well-intentioned but poorly executed plan was supposed to help auditors ensure that donations are used appropriately. But a quarter of the volunteers haven’t authorized the background checks and were told to leave the organization, sparking fears that an important volunteer resource could be overwhelmed if a major disaster were to occur.

The protest underscores the difficult world in which volunteer organizations are learning to operate. The Red Cross describes the background checks, which also are required of new volunteers, as necessary in the wake of 2001 terrorist attacks. Americans pledged more than $1.3 billion to the Red Cross in the weeks after, but the agency drew scathing criticism for shifting some of the donations to operations not linked to the attacks.

The Red Cross subsequently reversed course, opened its books to an independent audit and began directing local chapters to strengthen internal controls.

The local Red Cross leadership has an ethical and legal responsibility to account for donors’ funds, in-kind services and donated goods. But background checks run headlong into justifiable consumer anger over ever-increasing demands for Social Security numbers and other data considered to be private.

To make matters worse, the agency failed to explain why background checks were necessary for all volunteers -- and how the checks would prevent fraudulent activity. The Red Cross also failed to tell volunteers how potentially damaging information would be used and what would happen to reports after they were reviewed.

The agency could have avoided much of this mess by limiting its request for background checks to volunteers who regularly handle funds -- and then explaining in one-on-one sessions why the security steps were necessary. That would have made the entire process more transparent.

Agency officials now are contacting volunteers who balked at signing permission slips to offer more thorough explanations. It’s unfortunate that the agency has opted for a screening system that will push necessary volunteers out of public service.

Orange County author Richard Cheshire, who has written about the leadership challenges at nonprofit organizations, sums up the challenge this way: “Leadership is based on a set of principles that cannot be overlooked without doing harm.” The Red Cross’ challenge, to paraphrase Cheshire, is to restore the spirit of compassion and collaboration so this vital organization and its needed volunteers can complete their role.