Wounded Warrior Project - SCAM OR NOT?

News reported this week by CBS News and the New York Times claims the Wounded Warrior Project is spending large amounts of money on advertising, lavish parties, and executive salaries, but it is not spending much money to help veterans.

The scandal was supposedly uncovered by an investigation conducted by Charity Navigator, the nation's largest and most-utilized evaluator of charities. Charity Navigator gathers its information from the Federal Tax Reports filed by the charities. According to Charity Navigator, the Wounded Warrior Project spends less than 60 percent of its total expenses on the programs and services it delivers to veterans.  I think it is important to note that Charity Navigator does not INVESTIGATE any charity organization. It only makes reports from the tax forms that the charity organizations submit to the Federal Government.

Thomas Mangan of the Rochester Independent Examiner claims Donald Trump skipped the last Republican Debate on Fox to attend a Wounded Warrior fund raising project. That is not true so it makes me question if the reports on the Wounded Warrior project are all true. Wounded Warrior did not receive any funds from the Trump veteran fund raisers. He claimed it was a “Wounded Warrior Fund Raising Project” that is not true. It was a Donald Trump veteran’s fund raiser. He claims Trump knew about the scandal and went ahead and supported the Wounded Warrior fund raiser, again untrue. Trump refused to share the money with Wounded Warrior because of the scandal. Trump stated before and after the fund raiser he would not be donating any funds to Wounded Warrior until the scandal was cleared up.

Army Staff Sgt. Erick Millette worked with the Wounded Warrior Project for two years before he quit because of his disillusionment with the way the Wounded Warrior Project spends the money that people donated to the charity. Millette told CBS News, “Their mission is to honor and empower wounded warriors, but what the public doesn’t see is how they spend their money.” Millette said that the Wounded Warrior Project is little more than a scam to bring in money to spend on extravagant and luxurious parties, as well as other non-veteran-related expenses such as the salaries for the charities employees” – (organizations need employees and employees need to be paid) . Millette told CBS, “Donors don’t want you to have a $2,500 bar tab. Donors don’t want you to fly every staff member once a year to some five-star resort and whoop it up and call it team building.” If what Millette says is true he is correct donors, including me, do not want donated funds wasted. But, Millette would not be the first disgruntled employee that exaggerated truths or lied about a previous employee.

Wounded Warrior was criticized for spending money to sue other charity organizations for using their name in fund raisers and advertising. I cannot fault them for that. If I was on the board of any charity organization I would want to protect the name of the charity I was involved with. I would not want the public donating money to another charity thinking they were donating to the organization I represented. Dishonest charities often play off the names of well-known organizations in order to confuse donors.

Kids Wish Network, Children's Wish Foundation International and Wishing Well Foundation all of the names sound like the original, Make-A-Wish Foundation, which does not hire professional telemarketers. Make-a-Wish officials say they spend many, many hour’s yearly fielding complaints from people who were solicited by sound-alike charities.

If Wounded Warrior has gone bad since 2009 they unfortunately would not be the first. CBS and Times claim Wounded Warrior only spent 60% of the funds collected on direct aid. Take a look at other charities that most of us at some time or another have contributed to and there are many more worse than these:

Kids Wish Network – collected $137.9 - spent on direct aid $115.9 million - 2.5%

Cancer Fund of America - $86.8 million - $75.4 million - 1.0%

Children's Wish Foundation International - $92.7 million - $61.2 million - 10.6%

Firefighters Charitable Foundation - $62.8 million - $53.8 million - 7.4%

Intl. Union of Police Association, AFL-CIO - $66.6 million - $50.4 million - 0.5%

Breast Cancer Relief Foundation - $63.9 million - $44.8 million - 2.2%

American Association of State Troopers - $48.1 million - $38.6 million - 8.9%

National Veterans Service Fund - $70.2 million - $36.9 million - 7.8%

Children's Cancer Fund of America - $43.7 million - $34.4 million - 4.6%

Committee for Missing Children - $26.6 million - $23.5 million - 0.8%

Association for Firefighters and Paramedics - $24.0 million - $21.4 million - 3.1%  

United States Deputy Sheriffs' Association - $25.6 million - $17.9 million - 0.8%   

National Cancer Coalition - $42.1 million - $16.4 million - 1.3%

American Foundation For Disabled Children - $15.8 million - $13.4 million - 0.6%

Heart Support of America -$31.4 million - $12.9 million - 3.1%

Police Protective Fund - $37.7 million - $12.2 million - 0.7%

 Veterans Assistance Foundation - $12.4 million - $11.1 million - 10.4%

Children's Charity Fund - $14.0 million - $10.3 million - 2.4%

The Veterans Fund - $12.6 million - $10.2 million - 2.5%

Wishing Well Foundation USA - $12.6 million - $10.1 million - 4.3%

Children's Leukemia Research Association - $9.8 million - $6.8 million - 11.1%

The 50 worst charities in America devote less than 4 percent of donations raised to direct cash aid. Some charities give even less. Over a decade, one diabetes charity raised nearly $14 million and gave about $10,000 to patients. Six spent nothing at all on direct cash aid. Several watchdog organizations say charities should spend no more than 35 percent of the money they raise on fundraising expenses, but that amount does not include salaries paid to employees. If they are correct I guess we have to decide is 5% for WWP salaries acceptable.

It does not make sense to me that a charity with major corporate sponsors such as U-Haul, Bank of America, Raytheon, NFL, Heinz and many others would allow the WWP to use their name and fund their events if they were in fact a scam. It is even more puzzling to me that Bill O’Reilly of FOX would not know if WWP was a fraud. Bill O’Reilly is a big supporter of WWP and generally appears to be very careful to protect his personal name.

The Better Business Bureau rates WWP as meeting their standards and has only had 3 complaints in the past 36 months and all three complaints have been answered by WWP in a manner that satisfied The Better Business Bureau. WWP meets all 20 BBB standards for charity accountability.

Brian Kolfage - A Wounded Warrior - an Air Force veteran and a triple amputee who was wounded in Iraq said he found it appalling to read the horrible things that the Wounded Warrior Project is being accused of and that he did not believe the accusations.

Another thing that concerns me is that a vast majority of the accusation against WWP comes from people who refuse to speak on the record and claim they are afraid of the power that Wounded Warrior Project has. This sounds a bit melodramatic to me.

One disgruntle veteran who would not give his name said, “Everything they do is a dog-and-pony show, and I haven’t talked to one (NOT ONE has been help by WWP) of my fellow veterans that were injured… actually getting any help from the Wounded Warrior Project. I’m not just talking about financial assistance; I'm talking about help, period”.  

The disgruntle veteran claimed all he got from WWP was a backpack maybe he did not know The Wounded Warrior Project was founded in 2002 by John Melia and his friends and family. Melia himself was severely wounded while serving in Somalia in 1992. Until March of 2005, WWP operated as a part of the United Spinal Association and is referred to as "United Spinal Associations Wounded Warrior Project."

Its first project was delivering backpacks containing personal supplies to the bedside of wounded warriors. The backpacks include "essential care and comfort items such as clothing, toiletries, calling card and playing cards, etc. all designed to make their hospital stay more comfortable." Melia remembered when he first arrived at the hospital after his injuries he arrived with none of these types of items. WWP started with just six friends packing backpacks to provide items to wounded services warriors at Walter Reed Medical Center and continues the practice to stay in touch with their roots. I would also think that most of the veterans in the hospital appreciated the backpacks and I also think these backpacks and items cost WWP money.

 I know some would object to WWP’s 2014 IRS report which stated $473,015 or   0.19% (less than 1%) of donations was paid to Steven Nardizzi Executive Director. I do not. I have worked in non-profit organizations and I know the importance of having someone at the top that is an expert in fund raising and managing non-profit organizations.  There is a fundamental misunderstanding in the public arena about what it really costs to run an effective nonprofit.

Charity Navigator one of the most respected watchdogs of non-profit organizations gave them the most 4 stars for “Accountability and Transparency”.  I stated earlier that 35% spent on fund raisings was acceptable and WWP spent 34% in 2014 on fundraising.  Charity Navigator gave it three out of four stars overall.

A 2013 independent investigation by the Tampa Bay Times and the Center for Investigative Reporting reported that the charity spent 58 percent of donations directly on veterans’ programs. That year, the figure WWP self-reported was 73 percent. Tampa Bay Times admitted they did not count literature handed out to veterans as direct aid and WWP did. I would consider literature that advises veterans of various aid programs that is available to them, how to write a resume, information on medicines and therapy is charity.

A lot of the veterans that complained are now affiliated with other veteran charity organizations. How much of their criticism is merely jealousy of WWP success and merely fear that WWP was eating up their donor dollars. Believe me when I say there is tremendous jealousy and competition among charity organizations – I know after 46 years in the industry.

At this time I do not believe The Wounded Warrior Project is a scam, nor an ill-meaning charity. Even its fiercest detractors admit that WWP has the right motives, even if they believe WWP can be a lot more effective. We can all do better!  I admit WWP Wounded Warrior Project has room for improvement.

I will not stop supporting WWP at this time. I will wait until it is proven to me that it is not a worthwhile organization. If and when it is proven I will chalk it up to another attempt at doing good gone bad – GREED!