Red Cross/FedEx Announce Collaboration to Help Small Businesses

September 13, 2007 -- A national survey of small businesses conducted by the American Red Cross and FedEx Corp. found that while 94 percent of small business owners believe there is a potential for a disaster to seriously disrupt their business within the next two years, only 43 percent feel prepared for a one week disruption of their business, and 22 percent feel prepared for a one month disruption. Importantly, many businesses do want to become better prepared, with almost a quarter of respondents indicating they are planning on taking steps to prepare their businesses for disaster. Based on these findings, the American Red Cross and FedEx Corp. announced they will create tools to help small businesses get prepared.

The Red Cross and FedEx are developing preparedness solutions to help small business owners develop an emergency plan and help their employees get prepared. A downloadable disaster preparedness checklist for small businesses will be made available at http://mysmallbizcenter.com/, as well as discount coupons which FedEx small business customers can use to receive 10 percent off their final purchase of preparedness supplies at the Red Cross online store, www.redcross.org/store, from September 10, 2007- October 31, 2007.

Macro International, Inc. conducted telephone surveys with 241 small businesses in June, 2007 to learn about how prepared they are for disasters, what specific steps they have taken, plan to take or have decided not to take to become prepared, and to gather information about tools and various resources that would assist them in preparing their business for a disaster. A random national sample of 101 small businesses has a margin of error of +/- 9.8% at a confidence level of 95%.