Charity Investigator: Wounded Warrior Project

Charity Investigator: Wounded Warrior Project
Kris Hundley
Jul 16, 2013

Wounded Warrior Project, created in 2003, has become one of the fastest-growing veterans’ charities in the country.

When the Tampa Bay Times and The Center for Investigative Reporting asked readers in June to suggest charities to investigate, it was one of the most requested.

Unlike the 50 charities the Times and CIR named on its list of America’s worst in June, Wounded Warrior Project does not rely heavily on for-profit solicitation companies to raise money. And it does not pay telemarketers to drum up donations.

Instead, it uses a combination of fundraising events, corporate sponsorships, advertising and direct mail appeals.

Last year, the charity raised nearly $150 million.

About $81 million was raised through professional solicitors. Wounded Warrior paid 11 percent of that money to cover its solicitors’ fees and the expense of the solicitor-run campaigns. In comparison, veterans charities on the Times/CIR list of worst charities paid an average of 82 percent to their solicitors.

The charity also has been criticized for its salaries, with 10 employees earning $150,000 or more. Executive Director Steve Nardizzi, whose total compensation was about $330,000 last year, said salaries are in line with similarly sized organizations.
read more here

They did a good job looking at this but left a few things out. Last year I asked Is Wounded Warrior Project a Country Crock? because I was getting too many complaints about this group. Like most I thought they were doing good work until I started to look again with open eyes. Aside from what is in the post I did last year here are a couple of other issues.

1.
If a group wants to raise money for Wounded Warrior Project, they have to pay for it.

BECOME A PROUD SUPPORTER Your registration fee of $99 includes:

The opportunity to select swag for your event, such as, flyers, brochures, lapel pins, stickers, magnets, and bracelets.

Access to the exclusive Proud Supporter Community where you will find FAQs, printable WWP materials, and customizable event materials.

The ability to set up a personalized fundraising page for your supporters to easily make online donations to your event.

Event listing on the Proud Supporter Events calendar.

The opportunity to share best practices and successes with other supporters through Community Connection, a blog accessible in the Proud Supporter Community.

2.
Every event I have read about was corporate sponsored. There is no way to know how much money WWP paid into the events themselves. This was from an event at UCF.

Then you also have corporate sponsored TV Commercials like Brawny.

They do not lie about what they are doing. Their PR campaign is so great they never claim to really do anything other than "support" the wounded and raise awareness.