Charity Watcher

The Committee for Missing Children has an avowed mission of becoming one of the most effective and efficient parent advocacy groups in the United States. The organization adheres to a two-fold goal:

•        Distribute photos with the relevant information about missing children and then encouragestakeholders, such as manufacturers, dealers, and publications, to produce pages for wider distribution across the country; and

•        Provide parents and legal guardians with their required assistance in coping with the physical and emotional issues caused by their children's and wards' disappearance.

In a way, the Committee for Missing Children serves as the clearinghouse of information about missing children including the applicable laws in their cases. The group is developing one of the largest databases on missing children in the United States.

Indeed, it is a parent advocacy group that advocates the rights of parents and their missing children. In the process, its staff gives hope to parents while also finding concrete solutions for law enforcement officials to act on.

On its website, the group claims a satisfactory success rate of reuniting over 1,600 missing children with their families since its establishment. Parents are also provided with direct cash aid during the process.

But the Committee for Missing Children has its share of controversies, too. Based on its financial statements, the organization has raised $27 million in donations over the past decade. Of these donations, an average of 2 percent goes into direct aid for parents usually in the form of airfare for reuniting families; the rest are given to its for-profit fundraisers, for its overhead expenses, and for its salaries to the staff including its founders, David Thelen and his wife.