Charities

So I was inspired by yesterdays post to find out about who are the worlds biggest charities. Is it the Catholic Church? Well I suspect so, but since I couldn't find reliable statistics, I checked out Forbes magazine. A 2005 article listed the top 200 USA charities... in order of money raised and distributed. The top ten were as follows:

1. United Way
2. Salvation Army
3. Feed the Children
4. American Cancer Society
5. Gifts in Kind International
6. AmeriCares
7. YMCAs in the United States
8. American National Red Cross
9. Catholic Charities USA
10.America's Second Harvest

Interesting to note that Catholic Charities USA (#9)is not the catholic church. It is one charity among many afiliated to the Catholic Church. Expenses and management costs for the top 10 range from 5%-10% of income... but look at the income: United Way (#1) raised 3.8 billion US dollars. Americas Second Harvest (#10) raised 550 million. Both Americas Second Harvest and Feed the Children only had had an expense and management cost of 1%. Yeah for them!