In 2014, the Tampa Bay Times in collaboration with the Center for Investigative Reporting published a very informative piece entitled America’s Worst Charities highlighting organizations across the country that do very little to support the causes they claim to crusade for.

The criteria used to determine the worst charities is the amount of money going to solicitors rather than towards projects and programs on the ground. The data was supplied by 10 years of available federal tax filings.

Unsurprisingly, organizations with a focus on children feature prominently on the Tampa Bay Times list. Of the top 48 worst organizations, 14 children’s charities are identified. The majority of all the worst charities are focused on four major causes: children, cancer, veterans and police.

#1 Kids Wish Network

#3 Children’s Wish Foundation

#9 Children’s Cancer Fund

#10 Children’s Cancer Recovery Foundation

#12 Committee for Missing Children

#13 Youth Development Fund

#20 Operation Lookout

#21 American Foundation for Disabled Children

#25 Children’s Charity Fund

#27 Wishing Well Foundation

#37 Children’s Leukemia Research Association

#40 Find the Children

#43 Caring for Our Children Foundation

In the top 40, there are 3 organizations that focus specifically on missing children.

Missing Children Charities

Committee for Missing Children

Official Website: http://findthekids.com/

Worst Charity Rank: 12

Cash Paid to Solicitors: $23.5 million

Cash to Charity: $3.1 million

Direct Cash Aid: $221, 775

Direct Cash Aid: 0.8 %

Officers: David Thelen – CEO and Karen Thelen – director

Salary: $84, 593 / $43, 000

The Charities Mission Statement:

To distribute as many pictures of missing children as we can by encouraging educational dealers, manufacturers and publishers to produce pages of missing children and distributing them throughout the country. We also want to see that the parents of these missing children receive all the help they deserve.

Unedited mission statements provided by the Colorado Secretary of State

Find the Children is based in Lawrenceville Georgia and is operated by David and Karen Thelen. The organization’s webpage hosts several testimonial videos and provides links to a number of resources in the field but information about the charity itself is scarce. Besides hosting photos and providing links to a network of equivalent child advocacy organizations, it’s difficult to assess the value of the services they claim to provide.

The Website links to the NCMEC, Amber Alert and Missing Children Europe.

Operation Lookout – National Center for Missing Youth

Official Website: http://www.operationlookout.org/

Worst Charity Rank: 20

Cash Paid to Solicitors: $14.7 million

Cash to Charity: $3.4 million

Direct Cash Aid: $0

Direct Cash Aid: 0%

Officers: Mike Gibson – President and Melody Gibson Treasurer

Salary: $0 / $0

Network: NCMEC, ACMEC and Law Enforcement Agencies

Though no salaries were reported for 2011, the couple has earned money a significant amount of money from the organization totally approximately $600, 000.
Operation Lookout was founded in 1984 by the Gibsons and the charity depends heavily on solicitors for the majority of its funding.

"This is a highly valued service to us as we do not have enough time in the day for all the tasks required," Gibson said. "So we count on the outreach to enroll private supporters to help us locate a missing child."

As a result, Operation Lookout claims, 82 percent of the missing children whose photos have appeared on the charity's website have had their cases resolved.

"So you know there's hope," Gibson said.

When fundraising declined in 2001, the Gibsons launched another charity, Caring for Our Children, to raise money for Operation Lookout.

There have been legal problems related to the Charities soliciting practices and ‘fundraising abuses’ in Florida and in Iowa.

Callers lied about how much money went to the charity and said local children would benefit from the donations when the money was used nationwide.

When viewing Operation Lookout’s web page you will notice that advertisements for E-cigarettes and locksmiths are embedded in paragraphs dealing with missing children statistics.

Operation Lookout is a Charity based in Washington State but has links to the NCMEC through the AMECO of which both organizations are members.

AMECO (Association for Missing and Exploited Children’s Organizations)
http://www.amecoinc.org/about/meet-our-members/

Also See: NCMEC Hiding in Plain Sight

Find the Children

Official Website: http://www.findthechildren.com/

Worst Charity Rank: 40

Cash Paid to Solicitors: $4.8 million

Cash to Charity: $2.6 million

Direct Cash Aid: $339, 367

Direct Cash Aid: 4.6 %

Officers: Karen Strickland – Executive Director

Salary: $75, 000

Alan and Linda Landsburg established the charity in 1983. Find the Children’s predominant means of soliciting funds is through telemarketing. “A necessary evil”, according to executive director Karen Strickland.

The Tampa Bay Times:

Volunteers help distribute photos of missing children on fliers and stickers placed on vending machines. The charity also organizes presentations in Los Angeles County schools to teach kids how to protect themselves from abduction.

Most of the money collected from donors does not help families and children. About 65 percent goes directly to the charity's telemarketing and vehicle donation companies.

Conclusion

What does this say about Charities whose focus is on Missing Children?

Well, it tells us that there’s a lot of money in missing children. In fact, there’s an industry built around missing children. The millions of dollars pocketed by solicitors also is emblematic of something more sinister at the core of these so-called charities. That is to say, solicitors, charities and the directors of these organizations all enriching themselves off the suffering of children.

From a purely financial perspective, would these organizations who depend on charitable donations actually want to see the rates of missing children go down? With the millions of dollars in donations at stake, it is unlikely that they would. The objective is to keep money flowing in and without missing children, there is no business.