AllMilitary.com

The headlines rang out on the AP wire last week that the Army’s charitable arm called the “Army Emergency Relief” or “AER” was “hoarding” its funds. I have read the article. I have read the Army’s response. I have read the arguments both for and against holding back such a huge reserve for a non-profit, and as an MSW with an extensive background in non-profit management I have to say that I do take serious issues with having that large of a reserve and no plans on extending services or expanding the base of a client outreach (for example reaching out to Veterans who currently do not qualify for services during a limited time while we are in a financial crisis in our Country).

The AER has a very huge reserve and that is reassuring to some, and bothersome to others. It is not criminal, that’s for sure.

I think that the main concerns being raised about the AER are ethical in nature, and they will be very hard to address for the following reasons:

1. There is no criminal behavior and the AER certainly appears to be right on board with their fiscal responsibility. This is an objective measure, and they have passed public scrutiny of open records.

2. They are not in the position to talk directly to the allusion of dubious practices with soldiers, fund raising, and the issues raised in the AP article around incentive giving as these would have happened in different chains of command. The AER can only be held responsible for such things if they were, as an organization, encouraging this type of thuggery with soldiers and their families.

3. The people who actually can file a complaint about fund raising practices and intake procedures for AER are people who are not free agents. They are subject to a leadership who has an interest in this very organization. When the authority over you handles every significant detail of your life — from your pay, your ability to advance at work, and whether or not you will be punished with added and severe PT (which was reported by some soldiers per the report).
Coercions used to encourage a donor to give should be truthful and free of any threats. All non profits use one type of coercion or another - whether it’s pulling on your heart strings or helping you feel the urgency of their need, they play on your emotions. There is nothing wrong with this when it’s being done in a way that’s honest and in a way where donors do not feel that they will some how have a negative consequence for not giving (other than the nagging of their conscience maybe).

I am not saying that the AER encourages this type of money collecting behavior, but there has got to be a very safe and clear way for soldiers to file complaints when they are threatened when they don’t give and rewarded when they do. There needs to be a clear and safe way to report it and there needs to be a quick and swift way to deal with anyone in a position of leadership who would use threats as a way to raise funds for the AER.

As far as the disbursement of funds, the AER claims that no soldier has ever been turned away who has a legitimate need. Again, the question that needs to be asked is, are all legitimate needs being brought to the AER? Are negative experiences keeping soldiers away or causing them to seek AER only after the situation has reached a level of crisis that could have been averted from earlier intervetion?

I received a few emails from people who read that I wanted to write something up about the report from the AP. I wasn’t happy with what I read, but I can’t say I was surprised.

Granted these are anecdotal because there is no way I am going to give enough specific information for these families to be identified, but their stories all had a few similar threads that ran through them:

None of the families knew that the AER was a non-profit agency. They thought that it was the Army’s money they were borrowing — like a payday advance without the charges.

Three of the people who wrote to me had to go to the AER because the Army screwed their paycheck up several pay periods in a row.

All of the people who wrote said they felt lectured and demeaned when they asked for money and that going to AER again for help would be very hard because of that experience.

Every single one of them told me that I could write generally about them, but feared retaliation if they went public with their complaints.

My final conclusion? AER is fiscally sound. I do not agree with the amount of the reserve they have, but it is not criminal. I do have serious problems with the ethical issues around the Army and supervisors being directly involved in program execution because clearly there is a conflict of interest. The only way to effectively address this is to have a true and objective barrier between the soldier-recipient and his work environment. The two need to be separate.

I hope the AER launches its own investigation and seeks input from past recipients in a way where they feel free to give honest and critical feedback. Being fiscally sound is not the same as being programmatically sound. I hope to read good things in the future about AER and how they resolve these problems.

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