American Red Cross HQ

The American Red Cross exists to provide compassionate care to those in need. Our network of generous donors, volunteers and employees share a mission of preventing and relieving suffering, here at home and around the world, through five key service areas:

Disaster Relief
The Red Cross responds to an average of more than 60,000 disasters in the United States every year, ranging from home fires that affect single families to hurricanes and earthquakes that impact millions. In these events, the Red Cross provides shelter, food, health and mental health services and other support to help families and entire communities get back on their feet. Although the Red Cross is not a government agency, it is an essential part of the response when disaster strikes. But as no one organization can manage every aspect of disaster response, the Red Cross works in partnership with other agencies and organizations that provide services to disaster victims.

To learn more about the latest work of the American Red Cross, visit the Current News section of RedCross.org (http://www.redcross.org/about-us/news-and-events/latest-news).

Supporting America's Military Families
The Red Cross helps service members, veterans and their families prepare for, cope with, and respond to the challenges of military service. Each year, the Red Cross provides nearly 550,000 services to service members, veterans and their families.

Lifesaving Blood
Each year, the Red Cross collects more than 4.5 million units of blood and nearly 1 million platelet donations from nearly 2.5 million volunteer donors. These donations are then processed into more than 6.4 million blood products for transfusions to meet the needs of patients at about 2,500 hospitals and other facilities across the country.

Training Services
Every community is safer thanks to, on average, nearly 2.5 million people who train each year in Red Cross first aid, CPR and AED classes. And, more than 4.6 million people a year receive Red Cross training in first aid, water safety and other skills that help save lives.

International Services
The American Red Cross is part of the world's largest humanitarian network. Working together, we help our Red Cross/Red Crescent partners respond to international disasters, build safer communities, and teach the rules of war. On average, nearly 210 million people outside the U.S. benefit each year from American Red Cross disease prevention activities and disaster services.

Each day, thousands of people – people just like you – provide compassionate care to those in need. Our network of generous donors, volunteers and employees share a mission of preventing and relieving suffering, here at home and around the world.

We roll up our sleeves and donate time, money and blood. We learn or teach life-saving skills so our communities can be better prepared when the need arises. We do this every day because the Red Cross is needed - every day.

Since our founding in 1881, Red Cross humanitarian support hasn’t wavered, but the way in which assistance is delivered continues to evolve.

Research shows the climate is changing, and the American Red Cross is witnessing first-hand the adverse impacts of more extreme weather events. Together with our partners, the Red Cross is changing how we plan for severe weather events, how we allocate and develop response material and human resources, and how we identify and prioritize services. This includes investments in technology that enable the Red Cross to better prepare in advance, visualize damage and destruction in real time, and develop targeted response plans to help people and communities faster. Addressing the threat of climate change will require collective efforts to build resiliency in communities and help alleviate human suffering. The Red Cross, through our strong network of volunteers, donors and partners, will do our part to ensure we can meet this challenge and continue to provide help and hope to those in need.

Information saves lives. It empowers people to make preparedness plans, donate blood and even find the help
they need in a crisis. That’s why the American Red Cross engages our more than 7 million social media followers in
conversation relevant to their daily lives. During emergencies, the Red Cross monitors social media conversation and offers practical advice to people looking for help—such as shelter locations and how to
stay safe during wildfires. Thanks to innovative geospacial technology and real-time monitoring tools, we also identify gaps and challenges on the ground and pass them along to operational teams who use the information to take quick and targeted action to address needs. As more and more people reach out through social media for support, the Red Cross brings our mission to individuals and communities in creative and lifesaving ways online.

In Fiscal Year 2020, the Red Cross introduced two new chatbots to guide blood donors, employees and volunteers on their search for information. Chatbots use artificial intelligence to simulate a “conversation” with a user in an efficient and friendly manner while continuously learning and improving as time goes by. These Red Cross chatbots are named Clara and Mabel to honor Clara Barton and Mabel Thorp Boardman, two of the organization’s earliest leaders.

The American Red Cross has numerous resources we rely on to deliver on our mission, including nearly 300,000 volunteers and more than 17,000 employees; through a network of about 230 local chapters across the U.S.; and over 35 stations around the world that support U.S. service members and their families. The Red Cross depends on the generosity of the American public to fulfill our mission. Central to meeting our goal and being able to deliver on our mission are those who support us with donations of their time, blood and money. This includes many financial supporters, as well as the nearly 2.5 million people who donate blood and platelets to the Red Cross each year.

Each year, the Red Cross responds to an average of more than 60,000 disasters, the vast majority of which are home fires. So we have set a goal to reduce fire-related deaths and injuries in the US by 25% through our Home Fire Campaign and our signature event, Sound the Alarm. So far we have installed over 2.2 million smoke alarms to help make over 940,000 households safer. Through the Red Cross chapter network, we participate in federal, state and local government agency disaster planning exercises and response efforts. We work closely with FEMA as co-leaders of the mass care portion of Emergency Support Function #6 of the National Response Framework. We also partner with community organizations and corporate supporters to provide emergency shelter, food and health and mental health services as well as resources and referrals to aid in recovery.

In addition, in fiscal year 2021, our chapters provided lifesaving training and information to nearly 2.5 million people in Red Cross first aid, CPR and AED classes, and more than 400 million weather alerts were issued to Red Cross mobile app users across the country. The Red Cross is making its training services offerings even more accessible to the public and more relevant, with courses such as First Aid for Opioid Overdoses.

We are working to strengthen the Red Cross brand. We are implementing nationwide marketing and brand standards to ensure the Red Cross has a consistent voice, sound and look across the country, which will increase the public's understanding of what we do. In addition, we are using a variety of platforms (e.g., www.redcross.org, our blog, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, as well as more traditional media such as newspapers, radio and TV) to communicate with the public, illustrate our services and garner support in the form of additional volunteers, blood donors and financial donations.

Our reputation as one of the oldest, and most trusted, nonprofit organizations in the country also helps us as we work to become a stronger Red Cross. The progress that we make is also due in great part to the strength of our partnerships—from those we collaborate with and the thousands of volunteers who deliver our services, to those whose financial investment puts our mission into action.

Despite the significant challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, this past year dedicated Red Crossers responded to over 60,000 disasters, delivered lifesaving blood products to hospital patients in need, trained millions of Americans in critical health and safety skills, supported military families and our veterans with emergency services, and assisted the international community with ongoing disease prevention and disaster response efforts.

Here at home, the Red Cross responded to numerous and significant disaster events in FY 2021, including: Hurricanes Laura, Sally, Delta & Zeta; derecho storm in the Midwest; devastating wildfires in western states like California and Oregon; winter storms in Texas; severe tornadoes and floods across parts of the country; and more. We took extraordinary steps to ensure the continuation of our mission during the pandemic while safeguarding the health and wellbeing of our volunteers, employees and the people we serve. As always, we remain deeply committed to providing our lifesaving services with equity, compassion and respect for all people.

In addition to our response work, in FY 2021 the Red Cross worked to ensure individuals are prepared for everyday emergencies they may encounter by teaching more than 4.6 million people lifesaving skills, such as First Aid and water safety. At the onset of the pandemic, we quickly established new online courses to provide individuals and businesses with the information needed to keep themselves, their loved ones and their employees safe in the COVID-19 environment.

FY 2021 also saw the Red Cross continue our efforts to provide vital blood products to hospital patients in need. Our Service to the Armed Forces mission remained a critical focus as well—with Red Cross workers distributing more than 780,000 care and comfort items at military hospitals and VA medical facilities. And, working with our global partners, we moved forward in our efforts to protect at-risk communities from measles and rubella while also helping to respond to the COVID-19 crisis around the globe. None of this lifesaving work would be possible without the commitment and generosity of compassionate supporters, like you.

Since our founding in 1881, Red Cross humanitarian support hasn’t wavered, but the way in which assistance is delivered continues to evolve. Though we're focusing now on some of these items, we will continue to focus more in coming years, too:
- Adapting to the Global Threats of Climate Change
- Identifying Needs through Social Media
- Utilizing Artificial Intelligence to Provide Timely Information; and
- Providing Blood Donors Health Insights During COVID-19