what percentage of the money donated to the wounded warrior project goes to the vets
Wounded Warrior Project Spends Lavishly on Itself, Insiders Say
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — In 2014, after x years of rapid growth, the Wounded Warrior Projection flew its roughly 500 employees to Colorado Springs for an "all hands" coming together at the 5-star Broadmoor hotel.
They were jubilant their biggest year yet: $225 meg raised and a piece of work force that had most 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 principal 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 land'due south largest and fastest-growing veterans charity.
Since its inception in 2003 equally a basement operation handing out backpacks to wounded veterans, the charity has evolved into a fund-raising giant, taking in more $372 million in 2015 — largely through modest donations from people over 65.
Today, the clemency has 22 locations offering programs to help veterans readjust to society, attend schoolhouse, find work and participate in athletics. It contributes millions to smaller veterans groups. And it has get a brand proper name, its logo emblazoned on sneakers, paper towel packs and tv set commercials that run dozens of times.
Merely in its swift ascension, information technology has also embraced aggressive styles of fund-raising, marketing and personnel management that accept many current and former employees questioning whether it has drifted from its mission.
It has spent millions a yr on travel, dinners, hotels and conferences that often seemed more lavish than appropriate, more than than four dozen electric current and onetime employees said in interviews. Former workers recounted buying business organization-class seats and regularly jetting effectually the country for small-scale meetings, or staying in $500-per-night hotel rooms.
The organization has likewise spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in recent years on public relations and lobbying campaigns to deflect criticism of its spending and to fight legislative efforts to restrict how much nonprofits spend on overhead.
Near 40 percentage of the organization's donations in 2014 were spent on its overhead, or most $124 million, co-ordinate to the charity-rating grouping Charity Navigator. While that percentage, which includes administrative expenses and marketing costs, is not as much as for some groups, it is far more than for many veterans charities, including the Semper Fi Fund, a wounded-veterans grouping that spent about 8 percent of donations on overhead. Every bit a result, some philanthropic watchdog groups take criticized the Wounded Warrior Projection for spending as well heavily on itself.
Some of its own employees have criticized it, as well. William Chick, a former supervisor, spent five years with the Wounded Warrior Project. "It slowly had less focus on veterans and more than on raising coin and protecting the organization," he said.
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Mr. Chick, who was fired in 2012 after a dispute with his supervisor, said he saw the Wounded Warrior Project help hundreds of veterans. But like other former employees, he said the grouping swiftly fired anyone leaders considered a "bad cultural fit."
Eighteen former employees — many of them wounded veterans themselves — said they had been fired for seemingly minor missteps or perceived insubordination. At least half a dozen erstwhile employees said they were let go after raising questions most ineffective programs or spending.
A spokeswoman for the charity said information technology fired those people because of poor performance or ethical breaches, and that each of them was given the opportunity to address their work bug.
The spokeswoman, Ayla Tezel, said that more a third of the charity's employees are veterans, and that the organization is rated one of the superlative nonprofits to piece of work for by The NonProfit Times.
"Sometimes employees brand poor choices that can't be overlooked," Ms. Tezel said. "And sometimes those employees are veterans."
A For-Profit Model
Veterans organizations in the U.s. often reflect the era in which they were created: Afterwards World War I, they resembled fraternal orders. After Vietnam, many focused on advocacy in Washington.
The Wounded Warrior Project cuts a dissimilar profile. Nether Mr. Nardizzi's direction, information technology has modeled itself on for-profit corporations, with a focus on data, scalable products, quarterly numbers and branding.
In an interview at the system's four-story headquarters in a palm-lined office park in Jacksonville, Fla., Mr. Nardizzi, 45, said spending on fund-raising and other expenses not directly related to veterans programs has enabled the Wounded Warrior Project to grow faster and serve more people. It estimates that 80,000 veterans have used its services.
"I look at companies like Starbucks — that's the model," Mr. Nardizzi said. "Yous're looking at companies that are getting it correct, treating their employees correct, delivering corking services and not bad products, and so are growing the brand to support all of that."
The charity recently pledged to raise $500 million for a trust to fund lifetime supplemental health intendance for severely wounded veterans. And on Tuesday, it started a program to provide care for veterans with mail-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic encephalon injuries, two of the virtually common injuries for veterans of recent wars.
Paradigm
Such ambitious programs would be impossible without significant spending on fund-raising and staff, said Mr. Nardizzi, who has become a vocal advocate of the idea that charities should be able to spend what they want on travel, fund-raising and executive salaries.
"How many others are not scaling up to cure cancer, to help the environment, because at that place is a belief we shouldn't invest in those things?" said Mr. Nardizzi, who was given $473,000 in compensation in 2014.
The Wounded Warrior Project'south roots are more humble. Its founder, John Melia, was a Marine veteran who had been injured in a helicopter crash off the declension of Somalia in 1992. When wounded troops began returning from Iraq in 2003, Mr. Melia remembered how he had arrived in a stateside hospital with just his sparse hospital gown, and began visiting military hospitals to distribute backpacks stuffed with socks, CD players, toothpaste and other items.
Equally the backpack project grew, Mr. Melia hired a few employees, including Mr. Nardizzi, a lawyer who had never served in the war machine just was an executive for a small nonprofit, the United Spinal Association, which served disabled veterans.
They began raising millions of dollars and broadening their services to include adaptive sports for disabled veterans, employment and benefits assist, and retreats to teach veterans to cope with postal service-traumatic stress disorder.
By 2009, the grouping had grown to nearly 50 employees and $21 million in revenue. Merely past then, Mr. Melia and Mr. Nardizzi were fighting over the charity's future, with Mr. Nardizzi pushing for more aggressive expansion than Mr. Melia, former employees said.
In Jan 2009, Mr. Melia resigned.
Mr. Nardizzi said in an interview that Mr. Melia left to pursue business organization ventures. Merely Mr. Melia'south ex-wife, Julie Melia, who worked at the charity at the time, said in an interview that her erstwhile husband felt like the organization was "stolen from him."
"He didn't want to exit, but information technology was obvious something was going to happen," Ms. Melia said.
The organization paid Mr. Melia at to the lowest degree $230,000 subsequently he stepped down, according to tax forms. He has never spoken publicly about his disagreements with Mr. Nardizzi, and declined to be interviewed.
Today, on a listing of 27 founders that was created by the clemency'south current leadership and handed out to all new employees, Mr. Melia'south name appears well beneath the name of the clemency'due south for-profit fund-raising consultant.
Rise in a Downturn
When Mr. Nardizzi took over, in the depths of the 2009 economical downturn, nigh charities had dialed back their fund-raising efforts, figuring that the nation was in no position to requite.
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Mr. Nardizzi doubled his spending on fund-raising and has increased it an average of 66 percent every year since. The Wounded Warrior Projection spent more than $34 million on fund-raising in 2014, according to taxation records.
The arrangement began producing inspirational ads featuring wounded veterans fighting to recover.
"The hush-hush sauce was the brand, and the mission," said Dave Ward, a vice president who left in 2015. "We put warriors on a pedestal and the nation wrapped its arms around that concept."
But as donations poured in, many onetime employees say the group became wasteful.
"People could spend money on the nigh ridiculous thing and no ane batted an eye," said Connie Chapman, who was in charge of the charity's Seattle office for 2 years. "I would wing to New York for less than a 24-hour interval to report to my supervisor."
All staff members flying to the charity's office at a military hospital in Frg traveled in business class, employees said. Ane current employee said her last-minute ticket toll $7,000.
Mr. Nardizzi fired Ms. Chapman, an Republic of iraq veteran with PTSD, in 2012 every bit part of a "management restructuring," she said.
By 2014, the grouping was spending $vii.5 million per year on travel, according to taxation forms.
The Wounded Warrior Projection asserts that information technology spends 80 percent of donations on programs, but former employees and clemency watchdogs say the charity inflates its number by using practices such as counting some marketing materials as educational.
The spending began to attract attending. Clemency Watch, an independent monitoring group, gave Wounded Warrior Project a "D" rating in 2011 and has not given it a grade higher than C since.
Mr. Nardizzi fought back. In 2013, according to revenue enhancement forms, the Wounded Warrior Project gave $150,000 to a nonprofit chosen the Charity Defense Council and Mr. Nardizzi joined its advisory board. The council'south mission includes defending charity spending on overhead and executive salaries, its website says.
In 2014, the Wounded Warrior Project lobbied in California and Florida to fight proposals that would have required nonprofits to increment financial transparency. Both bills passed in amended forms that did non significantly affect the charity, Mr. Nardizzi said.
Besides effectually that time, the group hired the global public relations firm Edelman, which has represented Starbucks, Walmart, Shell and Philip Morris, to improve public perception of the charity and its overhead spending.
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Former employees said they questioned the clemency's focus on money and marketing techniques. Erick Millette, an Iraq veteran, said he quit after growing disillusioned about his piece of work with a program called Warrior Speak, which involved veterans' telling their stories of healing to audiences. The veterans nerveless donations at those events.
"I wasn't speaking anywhere unless I was collecting a check," said Mr. Millette, who worked for the program for about two years, until he left in 2014.
Mr. Millette said the clemency encouraged him to highlight its role in helping him recover from PTSD and traumatic brain injury. "They wanted me to say W.W.P. saved my life," he said. "Well, they didn't. They just took me to a Red Sox game and on a weekend retreat."
A Focus on Metrics
As donations increased, Wounded Warrior Project executives began using data to measure staff productivity. The metrics were intended to better efficiency and help fund-raising. But some employees assert that the productivity goals were set then high that they eroded program quality.
The Warriors to Work program, for instance, was intended to provide one-on-ane counseling to develop résumés and interview skills, then place veterans in suitable jobs.
But executives quadrupled the number of job placements the program was expected to make each twelvemonth, reducing the amount of fourth dimension specialists had to observe good ones, said Dan Lessard, who ran the program for about two years. He was fired in 2014 for what executives told him was insubordination.
"They would simply come up up with numbers based on nothing," Mr. Lessard said. "I would push button back and they would become very frustrated and yell. By the time I left, we were only throwing guys in jobs to cheque off a box and hit the numbers."
The same push for numbers hit a program that brings wounded veterans together for social events. Former staff members said they had less time to develop therapeutic programs and then relied on giving veterans tickets to concerts and sporting events. To fill up seats, they often invited the aforementioned veterans.
"If the same warrior attends six unlike events, you could record that as six warriors served," said Renee Humphrey, who oversaw alumni outreach in Southern California for most four years. "You had the same few guys who loved going to complimentary events."
Ms. Humphrey, an Republic of iraq veteran with PTSD, was fired in 2013. Her termination was then abrupt that her work telephone and credit card were shut off while she was leading an event.
Prototype
Mr. Nardizzi said his staff was constantly monitoring metrics to try to go the almost out of every dollar donated. "It's a hard balance, but I think we strike the right balance," he said.
He said that the organization regularly followed upwards with veterans who receive Wounded Warrior Project services and that the vast majority reported having good experiences.
Multiple Terminations
Function of the organization's drive for growth has been a tough stance toward workers considered unproductive or disloyal.
Afterwards Jesse Longoria recovered from a roadside bomb smash that about killed him in Iraq, he got a chore with the organization grooming veterans to help other veterans.
"I loved it," the former Marine sniper said. "By giving back, I was helping myself and helping other vets."
In 2012, after he had been working for the clemency about a year, he had to have his right arm amputated because of lingering impairment from Iraq.
Soon afterward the amputation, he said, he was racked by haunting emotions from Iraq and checked himself into suicide lookout at a psychiatric ward.
A calendar week afterward, he was back at work when a fistfight bankrupt out between veteran mentors who had been drinking afterward one of his training sessions. He was non in the room at the time but was held responsible for the fight, his dominate at the time, Mr. Chick, said in an interview.
Mr. Chick's ain supervisor told him to fire Mr. Longoria. Mr. Chick said he refused, only was ordered by his boss to write an email recommending the firing. "He said yous meliorate practise this or you are going to look disloyal to the organisation," Mr. Chick said. "It was a very coercive conversation."
The Wounded Warrior Project said Mr. Longoria was terminated at Mr. Chick's recommendation. The system fired Mr. Chick later the same twenty-four hours for insubordination.
Mr. Longoria said he was offered coin in commutation for signing a nondisclosure agreement, but refused. Other sometime employees said they had signed such forms, and could not speak.
Mr. Longoria said later on he was fired, he fell into depression but was too relieved. He said he felt guilty near what he saw as widespread waste.
Once a child came by the function to donate a piggy bank. Another time a woman called to donate part of her son's life insurance later on he was killed in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan, he said.
"It got under my peel, started eating at me," he said. "I knew where the money was going to. It seemed to me like information technology was a big lie."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/28/us/wounded-warrior-project-spends-lavishly-on-itself-ex-employees-say.html
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