Wounded Warrior Project spends lavishly on itself
By Dave Philipps, New York Times
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — In 2014, after 10 years of rapid growth, the Wounded Warrior Project flew its roughly 500 employees to Colorado Springs for an “all hands” meeting at the five-star Broadmoor hotel.
They were celebrating their biggest year yet: $225 million raised and a work force that had nearly doubled. On the opening night, before three days of strategy sessions and team-building field trips, the staff gathered in the hotel courtyard. Suddenly, a spotlight focused on a 10-story bell tower where the chief executive, Steven Nardizzi, stepped off the edge and rappelled toward the cheering crowd.
That evening is emblematic of the polished and well-financed image cultivated by the Wounded Warrior Project, the country’s largest and fastest-growing veterans charity.
Since its inception in 2003 as a basement operation handing out backpacks to wounded veterans, the charity has evolved into a fund-raising giant, taking in more than $372 million in 2015 — largely through small donations from people over 65.
Pretty sad. I’m glad their Colorado gathering was discovered and the info published. A real shame.
This is a sad story that I heard about only 6 day’s ago, I was contributing $30.dollars a month for the last 3 years and felt it was a great cause. Stopped Auto Payment yesterday. So sad that people take advantage of that worthy cause.
My father would be disgusted at this greed. He gave regularly to WWP
He was a WWII vet and didn’t have much money but believed this was a great organization.
40% spent on overhead shows careless spending and greed.
Shame shame
This has been out for a while. I say this article is a publicity stunt using 2014 numbers because from what I saw on 60 Minutes or 20/20 a couple years ago, they were spending almost nothing on vets. The piece showed how they get everything donated and then handout backpacks full of free donations to vets at hospitals. Please, please find a different organization to fund helping veterans and their families. This one is a disgrace.
I have been warning people about this and other phony charities for years. The first clue is the millions of dollars spent on tear jerk TV advertising. Make a Wish deserves your support, mostly volunteers. Before you give to any charity, do your homework, or keep it local and you can see the impact first hand.
Stay away from PVA too, an even bigger scam. Once they get your name it will be passed around to every money raising scam there is. “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” Samuel Johnson, 1775
Isnt this the same “charity” trump the chump was just meeting with while his gop buddies were argueing on foxnoise a few nights ago?
Just for fun look up “trumpery” in a dictionary. Says it all…
@kmp, Priceless, thanks for the laugh.
Search Charity Watchdogs it will help. Also every non profit in America has to file a form 990 which names its top five paid officers and their salaries. You simply contact the IRS and ask for a copy of their 990 to be sent to you. Very telling.
Please don’t think that our local community service organizations are like this.
Most if not all have two very separate accounts.
The first being their administration account which pays for all conventions …etc. This money is raised internally from members.
The second is their community service account which is raised from fundraisers. All of this money goes back to the community.