(MONEY Magazine) – One way to check that a large charity is well managed -- before giving the group cash -- is to find out whether it has been approved by the two major nonprofit watchdog organizations: the National Charities Information Bureau (NCIB) and the Philanthropic Advisory Service of the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB). Recently, the groups announced that three well-known charities that didn't meet their standards last year now do. The NCIB has given thumbs up to ALSAC-St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (901-522-9733) and World Wildlife Fund (202-293-4800); Juvenile Diabetes Foundation (212-889-7575) now meets CBBB standards. But three others lost their '93 approval ratings. The details: The YMCA national office no longer gets NCIB approval (the NCIB doesn't review local "Y"s) because the Y has stopped publishing an annual report containing program descriptions and financial data. A YMCA spokesman said this information is available but spread among a number of reports. The CBBB says that the Alzheimer's Association failed on two counts: In an invitation to a 1992 Palm Beach fund-raising luncheon it didn't spell out what portion of the price would go to the charity, and a firm conducting its telephone fund raising didn't properly identify itself. The charity says both problems have since been corrected. CARE lost its CBBB approval after its mail-order catalogue failed to say how much of the price of the goods CARE would keep. Says CBBB vice president Bennett Weiner: "Consumers should be told how much is going to the group." A CARE spokesman says this fall's catalogue will note that all net proceeds will benefit its programs, which could reverse the CBBB's decision.