Format: Hardcover 
 
 After a decade at National Public Radio, Ken Stern learned a few things about the weird world of the American nonprofit sector. In his new book, With Charity for All: Why Charities Are Failing and a Better Way to Give, Stern bemoans the state of charitable activity today, arguing that most of the nonprofit sector is financially inept at best, and downright unsavory at worst. 
 
 
 
 Some charities obviously are fraudulent. Every now and then we read about them. When the salary of the CEO and money spent on phone banks dwarf the tiny percentage of revenues, if any, that go to the supposed beneficiaries of a charity, it's easy to call foul. But it's not always so easy to identify this type of non-charity. Getting charitable status from the IRS is a breeze, state oversight is weak to non-existent, and plenty of donors are swayed by words like "veteran," "children," "hope," "beneficial," "cancer," and other key words. Investigating the financials of charities can be time-consuming, frustrating, and near impossible. 
 
 
 
 Other charities, while more above-board about their financials and activities, probably should not be classified as charities. Two examples Stern explores are non-profit hospitals and college football bowl games. In terms of treating needy patients, non-profit hospitals as a whole are no more charitable, and in some cases less, than their for-profit competitors. Yet they enjoy a variety of tax benefits that give them a competitive advantage. With the bowl games, it's even harder to say that they are "charities" with the money they spend on golf outings, high salaries, travel, and entertainment. Similarly, Stern points the finger at opera companies, charities which exist primarily for the benefit of--their donors! ||||| As with every disaster both man-made and natural, people outside of Houston are scouring the web for charities to whom they can donate in the wake of the deadly Hurricane Harvey. Through the chatter, however, one theme has emerged — news organizations urging readers to avoid donating to the American Red Cross. 
 
 News sites across the political spectrum, from Slate to the New York Times and Democracy Now! to Bloomberg, have published editorials in recent days detailing the reasons users shouldn’t give their hard-earned cash to the well-known and mostly-beloved charity. Their main evidence? The organization’s terrible response to Hurricane Katrina in 2006, the Haitian earthquake in 2010 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012. 
 
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 In an article published on Wednesday, Bloomberg noted that ProPublica has uncovered the ARC’s shady spending practices. 
 
 “Not only is the charity less than transparent with how it has used donors’ money,” the Bloomberg report reads, “it has been intentionally misleading. Its claim that 91 cents of every dollar goes to disaster victims was called ‘not true‘ by NPR and ProPublica. The organization even went so far as to say its spending practices were ‘a trade secret.'” 
 
 Beyond criticism of their financial structure, the organization has always been criticized for the way they handled the many climate change-fueled disasters in recent years. One of the widest-shared figures recounts how the organization claimed to have provided housing for 130,000 people in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, but had only built six houses. 
 
 Journalists who witnessed the ARC’s poor responses to natural disasters. Dan Gillimor, a veteran reporter and professor at Arizona State’s Walter Kronkite School of Journalism, advised people not support the organization based on their poor track record, as did Slate’s Jonathan Katz. 
 
 “ARC was roundly blasted in the U.S. for its shambolic response to 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, with international observers warning that elements were so bad that they verged on criminal wrongdoing,” Katz, who was on the ground in Haiti when the earthquate hit, wrote. “Seven years later, despite an internal retooling effort, it failed again in 2012’s Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Isaac. (The response was ‘worse than the storm,’ one Red Cross driver told ProPublica during its jaw-dropping investigation.)” 
 
 The good news is that the ARC is far from the only organization providing relief to Harvey’s continuously-growing list of victims. As NPR reports, there are dozens of organizations, many specialized, that are on the ground in Houston. 
 
 Raw Story’s picks for some of the most worthy local and national charities responding to Harvey are The Center for Disaster Philanthropy, The Greater Houston Community Foundation, Feeding Texas, the Texas Diaper Bank and Austin Pets Alive!. 
 
 In addition to monetary donations, many people are working to donate menstrual products to people in Houston who have had to do without since the storm hit. 
 
 You can find a search through a large list of charity organizations to donate to via Charity Navigator as well.
– The fiscal cliff isn't the only looming financial deadline. Just a few days remain to give to charity in 2012, and Ken Stern would prefer you not make your decision "hastily, based on poor information." Writing for the Washington Post, the former NPR exec and author of this upcoming book dispels five myths clouding the topic: It's not all about the poor: There are 1.1 million charities in America ... including Oregon's Renegade Roller Derby team, the All Colorado Beer Festival, and countless hospitals. Stern explains it's "astonishingly easy" to form a charity, with the IRS OKing 99.5% of applications from would-be charities. Low overhead is a sign of greatness: A number of charity raters favor those who put upward of 85% of their income toward services, with those using just a sliver of cash on expenses often seen as the best. But investing in things like research and training can make for stronger charities. To wit, Stern reminds us that the Red Cross' Hurricane Katrina and Sandy issues stemmed in part from inadequate investment "in the infrastructure necessary to handle complex emergency relief." Picking a great charity to give to is easy: "In fact, it is enormously difficult," writes Stern who, as example, points out that more than 60,000 charities have the word "veteran" in their names. His solution isn't the easiest: Work at it. "On average, Americans spend more time watching television in one day than they do researching charities in an entire year." Put the time in, review studies published by GiveWell, and look beyond famous leaders or catchy stories. Click for two more myths, including the idea that nonprofits aren't profitable.