Tampa Bay Times Blows the Lid on Crooked Charities

The results of a yearlong investigation conducted by both the Tampa Bay Times and The Center for Investigative Reporting is shaking the foundations of some really crummy foundations.

The investigators looked into several thousand national charities to see which were spending the most and the least on direct patient care or advocacy.

They created a list of the 50 worst charities. By what criteria? They looked at how much of each dollar donated actually goes towards the cause the charity claims to support, and how much of each dollar is diverted to pay for-profit companies to drum up fundraisers to make them more money.

In some cases, the worst charities put no more than few cents of every dollar towards helping those in need.

Combined, the 50 worst charities squandered almost $1 billion that should have gone towards patients on paying companies to help them raise money. In some cases, these companies were owned by the members of the same family that ran the charity.

In the worst 50, predictably, there are 10 cancer charities (the number signifies where the charity ranked among the worst):

• 2. Cancer Fund of America
• 4. American Breast Cancer Foundation
• 6. Breast Cancer Relief Foundation
• 10. Children's Cancer Fund of America
• 11. Children's Cancer Recovery Foundation
• 21. National Cancer Coalition
• 22. Woman to Woman Breast Cancer Foundation
• 37. Children's Leukemia Research Association
• 38. United Breast Cancer Foundation
• 50. Hope Cancer Fund

You can read the Bay Times report here.

It's no coincidence that the names of these charities sound so similar to more reputable ones. That makes this situation that much more disgusting.