The lack of transparency around shipments of humanitarian aid to one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere raises important questions about how charities working overseas can hide or understate their expenses while overstating the amount of good they do, an investigation by the Tampa Bay Times, the Center for Investigative Reporting, and CNN finds.

Based on a review of IRS tax forms, shipping records, and customs documents, reporters found that, in 2010, fifteen U.S. charities claimed to have sent shipments of medicine and medical supplies valued at $40 million to Guatemala through Charity Services International, a for-profit company that obtains large quantities of donated goods, finds nonprofits seeking a way to help people in need at low cost, and, for a fee, handles the shipping as well as tax and customs documents. Yet neither the charities in question nor the biggest recipient of their aid in Guatemala would provide details to the Times, CIR, or CNN about where the supplies went or who benefited.

The fifteen organizations — five of which are included in the Times/CIR America's Worst Charities list — range from diabetes and disabled veterans groups in Florida, to a conservative political action group in Washington, D.C., to a Tennessee charity that provides direct financial assistance to cancer patients. Among other things, the investigation found that Charity Services International highlighted on its Web site how it could help charities in the U.S. reduce their fundraising ratios by arranging overseas donations valued at millions for a fee of just a few thousand dollars. Fees paid to Charity Services International are seldom publicly disclosed, as charities are required only to report the names of their five highest-paid vendors above $100,000.

Roy Tidwell, owner and president of Charities Services International, which is currently under review by South Carolina charity regulators, said it wasn't his company's job to assess a shipment's value. "Each charity has the responsibility to assign [a] value to donations," said Tidwell. While some of the charities insisted they had sufficient documentation to support the values reported to the Internal Revenue Service, they declined to share it. Experts told CIR and the Times that it was common for charities to exaggerate the value of in-kind gifts. Craig Stevens, who runs an accounting firm in Rockville, Maryland, told the Times about a situation a few years ago in which a charity that was being audited by his firm “wanted to value [its overseas donations that year] at something like $120 million, and we were hard-pressed to say it was worth $2 million."

Veteran relief workers in Guatemala said they had little familiarity with the work of the recipient of the largest portion of the shipments — the Order of Malta, whose international report does not mention its activities in Guatemala — and had no knowledge of significant shipments of medical supplies to Guatemala in 2010. When told of reported shipments valued at $40 million, Carmen Gandarela, public relations manager for medical charity Helps International, said, "Even a tiny fraction of that would have an enormous impact here."