Wounded Warrior Project Exonerated After Vicious #FakeNews Smears by NY Times and CBS

thegatewaypundit ^ | Jim Hoft

[davikkm]

The New York Times and CBS News published vicious hit pieces on The Wounded Warrior Project in early 2016.

Recently the injured veterans charity was exonerated.

But The New York Times and CBS have yet to post corrections to their smear reports. Meanwhile, wounded veterans suffer.

Here are a few snippets from Freedom Daily on the controversy.

The Wounded Warrior Project (WWP) has been helping injured veterans since its inception in 2003, 2 years after the deadly terror attacks that rocked the nation on 9-11. Since its inception, the organization became the #1 veterans charity in the world. This year, WWP surpassed the 100,000 mark in terms of veterans they provide assistance to. Work the Wounded Warrior Project does has seen billions of dollars go to help severely injured veterans, and that doesn’t even include the charity’s day to day operations.

…After being attacked by the New York Times and CBS News last year, Wounded Warrior Project has fallen on hard times, and many severely wounded veterans are no longer receiving assistance.

But now the truth has come out. The reports by the Times and CBS that Wounded Warrior Project was misusing funds has been completely debunked. Not only were tens of thousands of wounded veterans harmed by the lies maliciously told about WWP, but two of the founding members were fired by the board of directors, and now they’re speaking out.

[davikkm]

Disgraceful, but not surprising. The MSM are anti-American scumbags.

[backwoods-engineer]

The Wounded Warrior Project is a bunch of anti-gun, anti-freedom scumbags, and I will not give them a dime, nor have anything to do with them. Honored American Veterans Afield (HAVA) is a much better program than honors our vets’ right and joy to keep and bear arms.

[oh8eleven]

Acccording to Charity Navigator , CEO Steve Nardizzi made $430,766 in 2015.
Nice work if you can get it.

[BenLurkin]

Were reports of missing funds false?

Or merely debunked?

[NonValueAdded]

I’ll admit I bit on the earlier smear piece. Now I’m neutral pending corroboration.

[Leaning Right]

> Acccording to Charity Navigator , CEO Steve Nardizzi made $430,766 in 2015. <

Yep, and that’s not uncommon. The president of the American Red Cross made $517,364 that year. To make that amount of money, it seems almost immoral. These are supposed to be charities, for goodness sake.

[Bodega]

You should check out the American Lung Association and the lung one...I wish I had figured it out sooner. Even CEOs have to eat, right!!!

I remember hearing about what the CEOs were making when everyone was contributing to the Haiti campaign. Cripes. And that is when I STOPPED contributing anything to any “charitable” organization. I will volunteer but nothing more.

[Portcall24]

I know of several organizations that got cease and desist letters from Wounded Warrior Project for using Wounded Warrior words. One was an exceptional organization that changed their name to Serve Our Willing Warriors in Haymarket, VA. They run a retreat for wounded service people and their families from Walter Reed and Ft Belvoir. My 10 year old grandson has raised over $1500 for this group and he’s still working hard to get more. His name was in the local paper and he’s leading a mother of all yard sale in June. He conducted several baked sales and he just beams about how hard he’s working to help this group.

[oh8eleven]

From the article:

"After being attacked by the New York Times and CBS News last year, Wounded Warrior Project has fallen on hard times,
and many severely wounded veterans are no longer receiving assistance."

I don't believe that for a minute. Just what does WWP provide that the VA doesn't? Personally, I wouldn't send them a dime.

[goodnesswins]

And if I’m not mistaken, WW would send so much junk mail...it got ridiculous.

[Milton Miteybad]

Acccording to Charity Navigator , CEO Steve Nardizzi made $430,766 in 2015.

Yep, and that’s not uncommon. The president of the American Red Cross made $517,364 that year. To make that amount of money, it seems almost immoral. These are supposed to be charities, for goodness sake.

These may seem like exorbitant salaries, but believe it or not, but the responsibilities of a non-profit CEO are pretty much the same as for a regular CEO. In the case of Wounded Warrior Project, the CEO was overseeing a charitable operation with roughly $400 million in contributions on an annual basis.

Is a salary of $430,000 too much to pay for someone managing operations on that scale, irrespective of whether the operation is non-profit or otherwise? I wouldn't think so myself. That's what good executive talent costs.

Incidentally, Steven Nardizzi was fired from WWP in 2016 over charges that WWP was spending too much on overhead and directing insufficient resources to the target programs. One reason that WWP under Nardizzi may have been overspending on overhead was WWP expenditures for TV/cable advertising. The ads were probably effective, but were nonetheless more expensive than other advertising vehicles. Other accounts aver that WWP was spending millions on team-building events under Nardizzi, which may be true.

Personally, I think Nardizzi got a bum rap, at least to some extent. His salary didn't represent a wholesale looting of WWP, but it is nonetheless fair to say that the WWP's percentage of total revenues directed to program expenses (as opposed to overhead) did fall during the latter part of his tenure.

[sean327]

My son was wounded in Iraq by an IED. The VA gave him the run around for 3 years on his claims. Me being a veteran as well thought I could help him navigate the VA. I was dead wrong. WWP and DAV came through for my son. I have nothing but good things to say about them.

[oh8eleven]

The VA gave him the run around for 3 years on his claims.
Sorry to hear that. My experience was just the opposite.
My county gubmint has an office set up with staff who act as liaisons between the VA and the vet.
Two years ago, I put in a claim for service connected hearing loss (USMC arty) and within six months I had a set of free hearing aids ($2k), and a 10% disability rating.
Did working through my local liaison office make a difference? Maybe. But I've had no problems with followup trips to the VA.

[azcap]

There is nothing wrong with the head of a 400 million dollar operation getting $400K per year. As long as the operation is running smoothly, bringing in the bucks and paying them out, criticizing the salary of the CEO is just petty jealousy or liberal anti-success talk.

[Maskot]

I totally agree! My daughter attends a Christian school. A few years back the school did a fundraiser for the Wounded Warrior Project. The kids were all excited and couldn’t wait to present the money to WWP. One day she came home in tears. The wounded warrior Project declined to take their donations because they were a Christian school. WWP would only accept their donations if they removed any references to it being a donation from a Christian institution. I kid you not. This happened on the treasure coast of Florida. Bill O’Reilly actually had a segment on it that evening or the next evening. Needless to say, everybody was furious! My spouse personally called the WWP offices and spoke with someone there. They actually admitted that yeah, the reason they didn’t want to take the money was because of the word Christian attached to the donation. If the school hid who they were, the donation would be accepted. Needless to say, wounded warrior Project got lots and lots and lots of returned fundraiser request mail from me with nasty grams written in black marker. Google it. It happened. I have zero use for the wounded warrior Project
It

[oh8eleven]

There is nothing wrong with the head of a 400 million dollar operation getting $400K per year.
President of the US makes $400K per year.
Just think, if the WWP CEO cut his salary in half, over 5 years that would be a million more bucks for the vets.