You get a telemarketing call from the Kids Wish Network. They tell you that they make dreams come true for terminally ill children. You remember seeing something about them on TV, and give $1000. Indeed, Kids Wish is a substantial-sized charity, and has taken in $127 million in donations over the past 10 years. However, their name is intentionally similar to the very legitimate "Make a Wish Foundation", but that's where the similarities end. Kids Wish is mostly a scam. It pays out nearly 86% of donations back to the telemarketing firm that solicits them. Nearly $5 million went to the charity founder and his own consulting firms. Only 2.5% of the donated money actually made it over to helping sick kids.

So your $1000 donation ends up giving $859 to telemarketers, $38 to the charity founder, $78 to other "expenses", and only $25 makes it over to the kids you're trying to help. Ouch.

Unfortunately, Kids Wish is far from the only large charity like this.

Here is a list of the 50 Worst Charities in the US:

http://www.tampabay.com/americas-worst-charities/

Here are two articles with further detail:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/13/us/wor...html?hpt=hp_c2

http://www.tampabay.com/topics/speci...harities1.page

This research was done by the Tampa Bay Times.

Many of these charities are intentionally named similarly to well-known, respectable charities, thus creating confusion when people think they're donating to the huge charity they've already heard of.

I have long suspected that many charities -- including ones closely associated with the poker community -- are run this way. I feel that without complete transparency, a charity deserves ZERO donations, no matter how noble their intentions appear to be on the surface.

For this reason, I actually regret allowing this site to be used for the 22Q foundation broadcast -- and not just because Jasep stole about 70% of the money. They have not been very cooperative in the Jasep investigation (more on this a bit later), nor do they have the transparency that I would typically like to see from a small charity.

I am not saying that 22Q is a scam, but rather that they are not providing the complete transparency that I would personally like to see in order to feel comfortable with them.

Here is 22Q's 2011 tax filing:

http://www.22q.org/images/documents/22q-990-ez-2011.pdf

Note that this pre-dates this community's involvement with 22Q, which was in 2012.

Also note that I am NOT equating 22Q with scumbag charities like Kids Wish, but just stating that, if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't pick 22Q as a charity to support, even if Jasep wasn't part of the equation.