That's where the expertise and management skill is.
Again, No. Sometimes the required work is throwing a sandbag or using a shovel. I have a bias--and at the end of this comment I will tell you how I arrived at that bias. What I hope in telling you about mine is that you might consider examining your bias.
I am absolutely certain that you have good intentions. What I know to be certain is that everyone eventually internalizes the cost of decisions. We always pay for our choices. Any organization that doesn't deliver accountability to the satisfaction of its clients will suffer from their doubts. Corporitization has a very real effect--it diminishes trust. I can also see in your comments that this work has been your job. I understand your wish to defend your profession--but I am asking you to learn more and understand more. Please consider looking at these complaints through the eyes of those former clients delivering them up. As a paid member of that industry I feel it is possible that you carry the corporate bias of insider status with you as you offer opinion. More defensive activity deepens suspicion. Maybe a sufficient number of accountants modifying and auditing operating procedures would deliver up greater financial transparency in a situation like Haiti?
To be clear, I have given time and blood to Red Cross. I want them to succeed. I have a hunch that the visibility of more people with shovels and fewer people with clipboards could be helpful.
My bias. I inadvertently saved a dead non profit with a fairly trivial amount of work. It was totally an accident. I did some simple internet work for about a year and with excellent results. I never actually conversed with anyone--I just kept showing up for work. After a while someone noticed that the only paid staff had left on an extended medical leave. Basically, I had been a minion operating without a boss--but it was working like crazy. In response to my work AND my request for more minions, a group decided to reconstitute the organization. After much discussion over 8 months or so, the organization's 'workforce' had increased but the management-to-labor ratio was 9 to 1. Everyone interested in helping showed up to be an organizer, not labor. As I hit the 2 year mark still asking for more minions, I resigned as the only minion and was replaced by 1 minion. Corporate culture--and I experienced it directly--meant a bias towards never being the minion holding a shovel. I now own the opposite bias. It's only a question, not an attack: Is it possible you have a bias?
my request: Please consider looking at these complaints through the eyes of those former clients delivering them up. I believe it possible that accepting that perspective may deliver up the critical insights to making stronger service organizations.
personal note, me to you: Awesome job pulling off the tent city! Thanks.