Most non-profit charities are scams and are created to be profitable for their owners.
Most of the money they get goes to overhead or administration fees or as salaries to the owners and employees.
Once again I'm not to happy with the way you put it. You provide an article about the US Red Cross, and based on that "most charities are scams and created to be profitable for their owners". That's a big leap. I'd actually like some links to research which state that most charities are scams and meant for the pockets of a few. If not, this is a misleading opinion based on no evidence.
When it comes to charities and non-profit organisations I agree they should be more transparent about what's happening. And I agree that money from charity goes to administration and costs. In fact I'm surprised that people make such a big deal out of the latter. Just to be clear, if most of that money would go to administration and costs instead of 'the cause' I wouldn't be happy either. I'm talking about the simple fact that money from charity goes to all kind of costs.
Who do you think pays the bills for shelter, administration, research, fuel, taxes, electricity, food, vehicles and whatever you may need for what you're doing? Some organisations get subsidies from the government, but no matter how big or small your organisation is, it will never be enough to cover the costs let alone do something whatever the cause is. Others want to be independant and rely on member fees, selling of goods, donations and such. As I work for an organisation that fights poverty I can give you a simple example of providing food for the poor during some kind of manifestation in the city. You need to organize it, and food has to be bought. You need a place to prepare it and people to prepare it, you need the right equipment, people need to know you are going to provide food, you need a tent, you need permission and will have to do time consuming administration for the local government, since you want to create awareness of poverty in this city you'll need pamphlets so someone has to make them, and print them, put information on the website, contact other organisations and see what they are doing and maybe colaborate or at least share information or guide all the efforts, maybe there will be a speech that someone has to make, permission to use equipment, organise electricity for equipment, invitation of people, you need transportation for the food, you need to gather volunteers, plates, spoons, forks, stoves, tables and so on, and clean up afterwards. And so on. All kinds of stuff that will cost time and money. Yet there will always be people who complain: "Food doesn't cost that much! Where did all that money go? And is this all you did this month?" Well fuck you.
Megadeth has a song called "Peace sells, but who's buying". Same goes for charity. Once Christmas arives I read all over this place that it's time for charity and the good causes everyone is doing. The other 11 months it's awfully quiet on this board. I'm sure there's people doing good stuff all year round and give to charity. Unfortunatelly there are also people who think that since they bought a t-shirt from greenpeace and some stickers from the Red Cross some 10 years ago they have a right to bitch. If people would do more there would be more money and time to spend on the actual cause instead of all the costs it brings with it.
