(CNN) — The #worstcharity in America operates from a metal warehouse behind a gas station in Holiday, Florida. Every year, Kids Wish Network raises millions of dollars in donations in the name of dying children and their families. Every year, it spends less than 3 cents on the dollar helping kids. Most of the rest gets diverted to enrich the charity’s operators and the for-profit companies Kids Wish hires to drum up donations.
In the past decade alone, Kids Wish has channeled nearly $110 million donated for sick children to its corporate solicitors. An additional $4.8 million has gone to pay the charity’s founder and his own consulting firms.
No charity in the nation has siphoned more money away from the needy over a longer period of time. But Kids Wish is not an isolated case, a yearlong investigation by the Tampa Bay Times and The Center for Investigative Reporting has found. Using state and federal records, the Times and CIR identified nearly 6,000 charities that have chosen to pay for-profit companies to raise their donations. Then reporters took an unprecedented look back to zero in on the 50 worst – based on the money they diverted to boiler room operators and other solicitors over a decade.
Here’s a list of the #worstcharities in America. America’s 50 worst charities
