Worst Charity-related Scandals with Charities in the world

Here is a curated list of charities that we have doubts about. We do not interpret the information, we only log the information. The list is for reference only with references to credible published news sources.

If your charity is impacted and you want to provide a response, please contact us.

Problematic Charity Scandals in Canada

WE Charity

To understand the issues, A timeline of the WE Charity controversy.

PM's mother Margaret and brother Alexandrewere both paid to speak at WE Charity events.

Conservatives call for Morneau's resignation as finance minister says he repaid $41K in WE trip expenses

Charity intelligence Canada also has suggestions to WEto correct the courses. Charity Intelligence has concerns about WE Charity's directors' independence. Currently WE Charity Canada has four directors. One director served as Deputy of Operations at ME to WE, the private business of Marc and Craig Kielburger. The chair, a York University faculty member and former staff member with the Toronto Catholic District School Board, was Marc Kielburger's high school teacher.

What is stranger is the 900M was going to a charities that is not the real WE Charity

5 highlights of the WE charity and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau scandal

June Findlay wrote a great post from first-hand experience and investigation about her other concerns about how WE charity runs their signature fundraising. It involves celebrity and in her words: manipulations.

MADD Canada

MADD Canadahas frozen its telemarketing fundraising activities in response to reports alleging 80 per cent of its donations go to professional fundraisers.

Problematic Charities in America

Trump Foundation

A New York judge has ruled that President Trump must pay $2 million in damages to settle claims that the Trump Foundation misused funds. The money will go to a group of charities, and the foundation is in the process of dissolving. The nonprofit groups that received paymentswere the Army Emergency Relief, the Children's Aid Society, Citymeals on Wheels, Give an Hour, Martha's Table, the United Negro College Fund, the United Way of the National Capital Area, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Each received a total of $476,140.01.

The foundation even made a $25,000 campaign contribution to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who soon after announced she would not pursue allegations of fraud against … Trump University. In the settlement, remember, Trump admitted all these facts. He took money that donors had intended for charitable causes and used it to help himself as he saw fit.

American Red Cross

Haiti Earthquake relief The American Red Cross vowed to help Haitians rebuild, but after five years the Red Cross' legacy in Haiti is not new roads, or schools, or hundreds of new homes. It's difficult to know where all the money went.

World Vision

A World Vision Donor Sponsored a Boy. The Outcome Was a Mystery to Both.

Problematic Charities in the United Kingdom

Time's up

Time's Up charities set up by celebrities as part of Me Too movement spent $1.4m on salaries including $157k on conferences at luxury resorts

Time's Up, the organization set up to fight sexual harassment in the workplace in the wake of the #MeToo movement, spent the bulk of its donations of executive salaries and only a fraction on legal costs to help victims in its first year, records show.

Oxfam UK

Inappropriate actions by in country staff Oxfam has been severely criticised by the Charity Commission for the way it dealt with claims of serious sexual misconduct by its staff in Haiti.

A report which followed an 18-month investigation found the charity failed to listen to warnings – including from its own staff, that it repeatedly fell below standards expected on safeguarding, and did not meet promises it made.

Its findings included:

• Oxfam failed to adequately investigate allegations that children as young as 12 or 13 were victims of sexual misconduct by an unnamed charity "boss"
• It was not as full and frank as it should have been about Haiti, and did not report the allegations of child abuse by staff
• It treated some senior staff more leniently than junior staff over Haiti
• The impact on victims and the risk they faced appeared to take second place and was not taken seriously enough

Learn more about how the Oxfam scandal unfolded.

Save the Children

The Daily Mail reported, on Feb. 18, 2018, on allegations of sexual harassment by Save the Children's former policy director Brendan Cox in its London office. Then, the BBC reported additional allegations: that former Save the Children chief executive Justin Forsyth had sexually harassed female employees.

Charity and Nonprofit Scandals in Australia

Australian Red Cross

The Australian Red Cross has defended its decision to spend up to 10% of bushfire donations on administration costs as "essential", but its past fundraising history shows it has previously promised to put 100% of all money raised directly to a cause.

Please tell us if we have missed any major charities related scandals in the comments below!