Wounded Warrior Project

Don M.

Don M.

SF VIP
Location
central Missouri
The WWP has been in the news the past couple of days for mismanagement and lavish executive spending instead of using the bulk of their donations to help Wounded Vets. This is outrageous, and these executives should be charged with fraud. The forms they have filed with the IRS are coming into question...they claim to spend 76% on veterans projects...which in itself is Not really all that good for a Legitimate charity. The independent charity tracker, CharityWatch.org, puts the real number closer to only 54%...which almost ranks as a scam. These top executives have been fired, but the damage has been done.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/wounded-warrior-fires-execs-spending-accusations-37571664

I would urge anyone who is thinking about donating to a charity to visit the CharityWatch.org web-site beforehand, and look at how the "charity" is using its donations.
 

:( Never fails to amaze me how some people on the planet can do the most foul things . Stealing from wounded vets ..how much lower can a person go?
 
Don M. said:
The WWP has been in the news the past couple of days for mismanagement and lavish executive spending instead of using the bulk of their donations to help Wounded Vets. This is outrageous, and these executives should be charged with fraud. The forms they have filed with the IRS are coming into question...they claim to spend 76% on veterans projects...which in itself is Not really all that good for a Legitimate charity. The independent charity tracker, CharityWatch.org, puts the real number closer to only 54%...which almost ranks as a scam. These top executives have been fired, but the damage has been done.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/wounded-warrior-fires-execs-spending-accusations-37571664

I would urge anyone who is thinking about donating to a charity to visit the CharityWatch.org web-site beforehand, and look at how the "charity" is using its donations.
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I stopped giving to generic charities after the United Way scandal decades ago. I go specific and ask questions and pay attention to how they solicit. If I get robo calls or junk mail on a regular basis with no history of giving to them I ignore.

Best summed up as pointed-the damage is done. Clean house but damage is done.

A bit of a side issue but I've seen the games people play with local charity money or charitable causes & fund raising. I've seen politics,overly liberal with charity funds to say the least and flatout theft. Even more troubling I found out after buying some raffle tickets to a local sports league that a league official was embezzling funds-for years. The coaches & players knew but didn't tell the police or public because the official left just enough for equipment,umpires, fields etc. As far as I'm concerned anyone who asked the public to donate or buy a raffle ticket knowing there was criminal theft of raised funds are just as guilty & selfish as the embezzler. There are a lot of good causes out there but many are in them for a personal agenda. Find one you know where the money is going and has regular audits & accounting reports.
 

I remember posting about that scam in October of 2014 in the Veterans Military Group here. Like WhatInThe, I stopped giving to certain charities that I heard bad things about years ago.
 
For anyone who would like to support wounded vets and their families, I can highly recommend https://www.fisherhouse.org/ Fisher House Foundation. It's a wonderful organization. [h=2]Fisher House Foundation is best known for a network of comfort homes where military and veterans’ families can stay at no cost while a loved one is receiving treatment.[/h]By the way, the founder, Zach Fisher has recently set up a new charitable organization (The Fisher Center Foundation). The Fisher Center is one of the largest and most modern scientific facilities in the world dedicated to solving the puzzle of Alzheimer’s disease.
 
Bobw235 said:
For anyone who would like to support wounded vets and their families, I can highly recommend https://www.fisherhouse.org/ Fisher House Foundation. It's a wonderful organization. Fisher House Foundation is best known for a network of comfort homes where military and veterans’ families can stay at no cost while a loved one is receiving treatment.

By the way, the founder, Zach Fisher has recently set up a new charitable organization (The Fisher Center Foundation). The Fisher Center is one of the largest and most modern scientific facilities in the world dedicated to solving the puzzle of Alzheimer’s disease.
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Fisher House Foundation is an Excellent Charity. It has an A+ rating at CharityWatch, and spends 92% of its funds on its stated objectives.
 
WhatInThe said:
I stopped giving to generic charities after the United Way scandal decades ago.

Best summed up as pointed-the damage is done. Clean house but damage is done.

A bit of a side issue but I've seen the games people play with local charity money or charitable causes & fund raising. I've seen politics,overly liberal with charity funds to say the least and flatout theft. Even more troubling I found out after buying some raffle tickets to a local sports league that a league official was embezzling funds-for years. The coaches & players knew but didn't tell the police or public because the official left just enough for equipment,umpires, fields etc. As far as I'm concerned anyone who asked the public to donate or buy a raffle ticket knowing there was criminal theft of raised funds are just as guilty & selfish as the embezzler. There are a lot of good causes out there but many are in them for a personal agenda. Find one you know where the money is going and has regular audits & accounting reports.
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Four cancer charities that the government exposed as shams. http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/19/us/scam-charity-investigation/

Jessica Rich, chief of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, says that in all, the charities spent about 97% of donations they received either on private fundraisers or on themselves. Only 3%, she says, went to help actual cancer patients.

According to the complaint, funds donated to help cancer patients instead went for personal use, in often lavish ways.

"[D]onated funds were used to pay for vehicles, personal consumer goods, college tuition, gym memberships, Jet Ski outings, dating website subscriptions, luxury cruises, and tickets to concerts and professional sporting events," the complaint says.
 
As long as charities are only required to use a certain small percent (it used to be 10%, but might be higher now) for "program services" in order to be a legal charity, there will be abuses. There are no end of small "charities" which largely exist to pay the employees (who are quite often husband, wife, kids and other relatives) large salaries and then a pittance is used to do whatever the charity is claiming they are "helping, rescuing or supporting".

My all-time favorite was a charity that we'll call "The Association to Rescue Foreign Dogs" (something like that). President was the husband, VP was the wife, secretary and treasurer were grown son and daughter, all getting a salary for their "efforts". They raised a certain amount of money...let's say $500,000. With that, they paid themselves handsome salaries and took a trip (using donated money), I believe it was to Singapore, to "study" the problem of stray dogs. They "adopted" a stray dog and brought it back to the U.S., where they found it a home. Of course, 10% of that $500,000 was used on this "fact-finding and rescue" trip; the rest went to overhead and salaries. And the great part is that you can get by with this for at least three years before somebody starts questioning you.....then you just fold your tent and move on to the next suckers...uh....donors.

My charitable donations go to a local agency that is "spotless"....they operate mostly with volunteers; their paid employees get reasonable salaries but nothing big. They provide medical and dental care to indigents and poor families using volunteer doctors and dentists, operate a food and clothing pantry, offer counseling and job assistance, among other things. They are good people and deserve donations. Nobody is going to get rich working for them.
 
Butterfly said:
Not much lower left to go!
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Sure. You can go lots lower. Stealing from children's charities. Animal charities. Charities that are supposed to be helping the helpless who had no choice in their own mess. We have an all-volunteer military now and have had for ages. No draft. Adults who volunteer to join up, go overseas to fight battles that aren't ours (we aren't being invaded) and get wounded get paid for doing it. I know the way this county treats its vets sucks. But no one put them in chains and dragged them off to "war." If you don't want to get wounded, don't fight. It is such a tragedy to waste a good life that could have been spent doing something a lot more valuable to our society. Our big corporations outsource their jobs to foreign countries and meanwhile our strong young men (and women) are going overseas too to fight other countries' battles and getting wounded. Keep them here, keep American jobs here, train these young people for those jobs, and we'd all be a lot better off.
 
I notice the "heartfelt" TV ads for the "charity...featuring Trace Adkins...are not being broadcast lately....I haven't seen one since this scam was reported. I wonder what will happen to the people who already signed up, and are having their monthly "dues" pulled from a credit card, or bank account. I imagine they may have to go through quite a process to have their payments stopped.
 
Oh dear, that is horrible about Wounded Warriors, I have family and friends who are fundraising for the awareness of the Wounded Warriors as well are raising funds for their second bike trip to raise awareness over in Italy. Yikes.
 

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