Keep your non-profit off this list

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America loves lists — especially bests and worsts. We also love to support worthy causes.

Before you give, make sure the charity or cause is doing the work you expect it to.

The Tampa Bay Times and the Center for Investigative Reporting recently published "America's Worst Charities," a colossal reporting project that looks at how much donated money actually goes into a charity's mission. In some cases, charities that raised millions devoted less than 1 percent to the stated cause.

The result is some impressive investigative journalism that could only be done in today's "big data" era. It includes two deep and searchable databases.