The American National Red Cross

The American National Red Cross, a tax-exempt non-profit humanitarian organization doing business as American Red Cross, supplies whole blood, blood components, laboratory testing services, and emergency medical training to federal healthcare agencies as a prime contractor on sole-source and non-competitive delivery orders, with the vast majority of recent federal work (99% of awards) structured as prime contracts rather than subcontractor arrangements.

The Red Cross operates as the nation's primary federal supplier of blood and blood products, competing without set-aside designations and holding an extensive portfolio of indefinite delivery vehicles and blanket purchase agreements exceeding $6.11 billion in combined potential value across 2,336 recent awards. The organization's concrete federal capability footprint centers on whole blood, red blood cells, plasma, platelets, laboratory testing services, therapeutic apheresis, and extracorporeal photopheresis to support federal healthcare operations, paired with emergency preparedness training, first aid and CPR certification, and disaster relief services. Representative recent work includes a $5.7 million firm fixed-price delivery order from Veterans Integrated Service Network 10 (August 2026) for blood and blood components through July 2031; a $13.75 million definitive contract from the Defense Health Agency (January 2026) for life support training and certification services through June 2031; a $1.5 million USAID project grant (July 2024) for disaster risk reduction and preparedness in the North Pacific through January 2027; and a $1.575 million FEMA Assistance to Firefighters grant (September 2024) for fire prevention and safety programs through September 2026.

Customer concentration clusters heavily around the Veterans Health Administration: the top five VA regional service networks (VISN 1, VISN 10, VISN 22, VISN 5, and VISN 4) collectively account for approximately 23% of recent award count but 8% of combined potential dollars, indicating high-volume, smaller-value recurring orders. The Defense Health Agency is the second-largest federal customer by potential value at $79.3 million across 68 awards. The National Institutes of Health, Food and Drug Administration, Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Agency for International Development, and Department of the Navy round out the active customer base. Across all customers, 51 awards valued at $34.9 million reach completion within the next twenty-four months, creating recompete exposure.

The Red Cross holds single-award IDIQs and BPAs across virtually all VA regional service networks, with individual vehicle ceilings ranging from $200 thousand to $25 million. The largest active vehicles include a $25 million Blanket Purchase Agreement with VISN 1 for ARC blood products (through June 2033), a $15 million Defense Health Agency BPA for blood products (through March 2029), a $7.5 million DHA BPA for low-titer O whole blood and liquid plasma (through September 2029), and multiple single-award IDIQs with VISN regional networks carrying $4 million to $6 million ceilings for blood and blood product delivery. The $2.5 million liquid plasma BPA with VISN 1 (July 2025 through June 2033) and the $6.95 million Minneapolis VA Medical Center blood bank products IDIQ (October 2024 through September 2029) exemplify the scale of ongoing commitments. Task order activity across these vehicles is consistent: the top parent vehicle (VA Blanket Purchase Agreement 245BP0080) carries 119 task orders with $12.4 million combined potential value.

SCI-reported invoicing for federal service contracts above the $150 thousand threshold shows $1.3 million in prime-contract revenue across FY2022–FY2024 (FY2024 at $709 thousand, FY2023 at $292 thousand, FY2022 at $330 thousand), with roughly 5–7 FTEs delivered to the federal government in recent fiscal years. Government-paid hourly rates on SCI-reportable prime contracts ran around $60.96/hr median, with a spectrum from $59.23/hr at the 10th percentile to $101.24/hr for senior labor. SCI data represents a highly limited slice of the Red Cross's federal engagement — the organization's blood product supply, training certification, and grant-funded disaster services generate far greater federal revenue than these service-contract thresholds capture. The Red Cross performs 100% of its SCI-reportable prime contract work internally, with zero average subcontractor hour share.

The Red Cross operates predominantly as a prime contractor across both contract and grant work, with only 19 sub-awards (1% of recent total) appearing in the source. Where the Red Cross subcontracts, it partners with Vitalant on transfusion-transmissible infections monitoring and blood donor cohort research initiatives, and with Vitalant, Creative Testing Solutions, Westat, and the CDC on respiratory virus surveillance studies in blood donors. The organization also appears as a sub-recipient under prime grants from the National Opinion Research Center (on American Indian and Alaska Native drowning prevention swim instructor training) and The Johns Hopkins University (on pathogen reduction technology evaluation). This sub-engagement is research-oriented and supplementary to the Red Cross's primary federal role as a sole-source blood supplier.

Federal grant work complements the blood supply contract footprint. The Red Cross is a recipient on nine named federal grant programs, including FEMA Assistance to Firefighters (CFDA 97.044), USAID Foreign Assistance for Programs Overseas (CFDA 98.001), AmeriCorps (CFDA 94.006), a Department of Defense block grant for military support, and cooperative agreements with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for blood donor research. Combined grant potential spans multiple years: the five-year Department of Defense block grant (through September 2028) provides support to military members, veterans, and families worldwide; USAID awards for Indonesia and archipelago disaster risk reduction and preparedness (through May 2026); a $1.5 million Assistance to Firefighters grant (through September 2026); and a Public Health AmeriCorps program (through September 2025) deploying 30 members in Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington for disaster preparedness outreach.

The Red Cross structures itself as a parent non-profit entity with 39 named subsidiaries, predominantly operating under the American Red Cross doing-business-as banner, without material separation of contracting identity or capability signaling across the corporate structure. The organization is not subject to small business set-aside categories and does not compete under 8(a), HUBZone, SDVOSB, WOSB, or other designated classifications; its federal contracts are awarded on full-and-open basis to recognized vendors of record, with sole-source justification common for blood product supply where market research identifies the Red Cross as the only qualified provider meeting FDA, AABB, and delivery-time requirements for specific geographic regions and VA medical centers. Awards consistently carry firm fixed-price or fixed-price-with-economic-price-adjustment structures. The Red Cross holds no named parent contract vehicles such as GWACs or governmentwide BPAs; its federal delivery order work is issued exclusively against single-award IDIQs and BPAs established directly with each VA VISN, the Defense Health Agency, and other customer agencies, reflecting the specialized and non-competitive nature of blood product procurement in federal healthcare.