Case Study: American Red Cross achieves 3X ROI and $20M+ savings while boosting supplier diversity with Coupa Software

The American Red Cross Improves Financial Sustainability and Achieves Diversity Goals with Self-Funded BSM Initiative

The American Red Cross, a nonprofit with $3+ billion in annual revenue that supplies 40% of the U.S. hospital blood supply, sought to improve financial sustainability while advancing supplier diversity. The organization faced limited spend visibility and control, inefficient manual and paper-based processes, difficulty meeting D&I benchmarks, and a prior Procure-to-Pay effort that failed to gain adoption as software costs threatened to rise.

To address this, the Red Cross launched a self-funded, cloud-based Business Spend Management (BSM) program—including Requisition-to-Pay, supplier diversity tracking, simplified IT and governance, and an easy web UX with executive KPIs. The initiative is on track for a 3X ROI and $20M+ over five years (payback under two years), already delivering $15M in cost reductions, $4M in working capital improvement, 87% on-contract spend, 50% less paper, and a >35% increase in diverse supplier spend (from 10% to 13.7% of $1.3B).

American Red Cross

Thomas Nash

Chief Procurement Officer