Kris Hundley & Kendall Taggert:

Across the nation, hundreds of charities take your donations in the name of cancer patients, dying children and homeless veterans. But the real beneficiaries are the charity founders themselves and the for-profit companies they pay to run boiler rooms that dial for dollars. To tell the stories of America’s worst charities, reporters reviewed thousands of charities and charted their finances going back a decade. These charities use deception, and in some cases outright lies, to persuade donors to give. Then they spend as much as 90 cents of every dollar raised to generate more donations. Regulators have proven powerless to stop the cycle of waste and deceit.