Disaster Relief exercise

Last week during the in-class exercise about the Red Cross disaster relief program I was surprised to discover that many of you did not choose to tackle the misunderstanding about the voucher program head-on. I was even more surprised as I began to realize that not explaining the voucher program right away was the correct answer. Most of you quickly recognized that you had an image problem and, due to the short time window, went after the image problem.

My inclination was that to address the image problem by direct mailing materials showing how successful the relief effort had been was dishonest and disrespectful to the donors, because it didn’t confront the actual problem. It has always been my approach to view donors as my peers, people who are capable of the same level of understanding that I am. If they do not understand the voucher program it is because it has not been described to them. If that lack of understanding of a program leads them to distrust the organization it is because the media has exploited their gut-level emotional response to the disaster for its own purposes.

The problem with taking the voucher program and grappling with it right away is, of course the outside chance that the American public is too slow to grasp it, and that it puts the organization in a confrontational position with the media. Saying, “the media exploited your emotional reaction to the disaster just to get you to sit through another eight commercials, whereas we exploited your emotional response to the disaster for the sake of hungry families” may not be a compelling enough reason to make people donate.

Interestingly, some of you knew that right away. What things came to mind that led you directly to the correct conclusion, whereas it has taken me almost a week?