Wounded Warrior Project reportedly accused of wasting donor money

[Flagg]

Originally Posted by tonyz

See link to Form 990 - from the web so can't vouch...break out the NoDoz.

https://www.woundedwarriorproject.or...rm-990_wwp.pdf

ETA Forbes magazine snapshot at link below:

http://www.forbes.com/companies/woun...rrior-project/

Cheers,

Yeah I went thru their filings for about 10 minutes last night.

They certainly don't make it easy to compare apples to apples do they?

A few things I noticed was that they had a rather substantial surplus this past year, and that they're sitting on a lot of "stuff" like vehicles.

A few of the US Vets I met mentioned they had a quite flash new HQ building either finished or under construction.

The Forbes largest ranked charities is not too bad. It's a shame there isn't a "50 worst" in terms wasteful spending.

Out of that Forbes top 50 biggest, Wounded Warrior Project is 6th WORST in terms of charitable services as a % of donations received.

[tonyz]

^^^ No worries.
Seems there might be better bang for buck places to donate.

Most direct route might be to walk into a Fisher House facility and ask what they need at the location.

ETA link to locate FH facilities:

http://www.fisherhouse.org/programs/houses/

[Ret10Echo]

WWP is starting to swing back at the CBS claims....

Twitter

[UWOA (RIP)]

Originally Posted by UWOA

I don't think it's a misunderstanding. Steven Nardizzi gets paid a yearly salary of $350,000. That doesn't include expenses like those exposed by CBS. That salary comes from the $19 a week that donors are paying, thinking that they're aiding wounded vets when, in truth, they're lining the pockets of Nardizzi and his cronies ....

Just my $0.02.

.

My bad. My info was old; Nardizzi gets $496,000 a year. Even more reason not to contribute to these low-lifes.

.

[DJ Urbanovsky]

Two summers ago, I was walking through the Old Market here when I saw a brand new 5.0 Mustang with full wrap Wounded Warrior graphics, fancy wheels, the whole works. A bunch of people were crowded around it having their pictures taken. I said to myself "Self, that must be $50,000 sitting there..." Which I think is BULLSHIT. That money could have helped a lot of people, but they bought a fancy car with it?!

Personally, I tend to stick with The GBF and then individual SF and their families. That way I know exactly where the money is going.

[cbtengr]

It's too bad that organizations such as this exist. If there are veterans in need then Uncle Sam better be taking care of them. I about gag each time I see a WWP commercial. The people supporting them financially have good intentions but are naive. WWP and similar organizations see none of my money, there are plenty of good causes out there that one can contribute to directly.

[Flagg]

Originally Posted by DJ Urbanovsky

Two summers ago, I was walking through the Old Market here when I saw a brand new 5.0 Mustang with full wrap Wounded Warrior graphics, fancy wheels, the whole works. A bunch of people were crowded around it having their pictures taken. I said to myself "Self, that must be $50,000 sitting there..." Which I think is BULLSHIT. That money could have helped a lot of people, but they bought a fancy car with it?!

Personally, I tend to stick with The GBF and then individual SF and their families. That way I know exactly where the money is going.

I think I saw a figure of between $1 and 1.1 million in vehicles on their asset portion of their reporting statement.

It didn't have any additional depth as to promotional vehicles such as that one, vehicles necessary for operations(I would think Uber or economy rental cars would suffice when traveling, but that's just what I do with my company), or compensation perks.

[Flagg]

Originally Posted by cbtengr

It's too bad that organizations such as this exist. If there are veterans in need then Uncle Sam better be taking care of them. I about gag each time I see a WWP commercial. The people supporting them financially have good intentions but are naive. WWP and similar organizations see none of my money, there are plenty of good causes out there that one can contribute to directly.

I think I saw something like $80-100 million of "in kind" value that I think consisted almost exclusively of gratis advertising from big media, which I presume big media would get the full retail value(nobody pays retail advertising rates) tax write off, but I'm not an accountant and you might want to check my numbers and how it all works.

Free advertising is awesome if you can get it, and there's nothing wrong with that. But WWP seems to have to spend $1 in fundraising cash costs(and mostly advertising donation) for every $3 received in donations.

That's a pretty messed up ratio.

To me it seems like if WWP takes a big hit to its donated advertising(maybe thru bad press) it might take a disproportionately larger hit to it's cash collection, which would cascade into an even worse tooth/tool ratio if corporate gravy train expenses didn't get immediately eliminated.

I reckon their critical vulnerability is their big media advertising donation relationships.

If people wanted WWP to get kneecapped to free up mindshare and money for more worthy charitable groups I reckon the way to do it is to disrupt their big media advertising donation relationships with a coordinated email and phone campaign.

If $10 million in donated advertising was disrupted by upset public, that could potentially see a reduction in $30 million cash donations as one hypothetical speculation.

And here I was wearing one of their rubber bracelets thinking they were the good guys.....looks like I'll be shopping for a GBF replacement.

And I'll try to bring awareness to this evolving embarrassment to the relevant folks in the corporate machine.

Just my 0.02c