Charity Watch: Beware These Two Charities

Clinton Family Foundation (CFF)
Charity Watch has the CFF on its "watch list," and Bill Allison, senior fellow at the non-partisan Sunlight Foundation, a government watchdog group, has likened the CFF to a "slush fund" for the Clintons. And for good reason: The Clintons took in more than $140 million in donations in 2013, but spent a comparatively paltry $9 million on direct aid.

Wounded Warrior Project (WWP)

In 2013, WWP took in almost $305 million in donations and claimed service to about 35,000 registered alumni and 4,000 others defined as "family or caregivers of a registered alumni." Those donations were up from $200 million in 2012, due primarily to massive advertising expenditures.

With its proceeds, WWP funds about 15 programs and writes grants to other veteran support groups. But what we found most alarming is the amount of funding paid for advertising and administration.

Many veteran support organizations are run effectively by volunteers — but not WWP.

According to Charity Navigator, the nation's largest oversight and review organization for charitable groups, WWP allocates about 55% of its revenue to program expenses while the remaining 45% is used for fundraising, salaries, consulting, meetings, events and travel.

WWP received a "D" rating from the American Institute of Philanthropy and only a C+ by Charity Watch. Indeed, WWP ranks substantially below other national veteran support groups like Fisher House Foundation, Operation Homefront and the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors.

WWP's CEO Steven Nardizzi, a lawyer who now receives a $375,000 salary, served up a legalese rebuttal to the evaluations from Charity Watch and Charity Navigator, insisting in The Chronicle of Philanthropy that those rating organizations were "horribly ineffective and misinformed."

However, facts are stubborn things, and an organization's audited financial statements can certainly expose a lot of facts.

While WWP expenditures appear to qualify under the legal parameters for 501(c)(3) nonprofits, only about 55 cents of every dollar WWP takes in goes to direct benefits for a wounded warrior. We have no objection to WWP's considerable efforts to raise funds, but it should raise questions when such a large percentage of donations fail to make it to our wounded warriors.

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