CAN I GET A JOB THERE? Wounded Warriors average salary: $86,211

We had a request to revisit the Wounded Warriors Project financials as they continue to pursue continued legal action against the founders of “Help Indiana Veterans”, a charitable non-profit that assisted wounded Indiana veterans and their families with their needs.

Well, Help Indiana Veterans helped Indiana veterans until Wounded Warriors Project shut them down and put them out of business.

Unlike WWP, Help Indiana Veterans didn’t pay its staff – in fact, Help Indiana Veterans was an all-volunteer organization dedicated to passing through nearly 100% of every donated dollar.

Wounded Warriors Project filed suit last fall after Help Indiana Veterans founder Dean Graham referred to the national Wounded Warriors Project as a scam in a poorly articulated blog post.   Dean was just an amateur blogger who didn’t know the boundaries of what to write and it got him in trouble.

Ever the merciful and kind-hearted, WWP continues to grind Dean and his wife into the dirt, even after idling their successful local veterans assistance organization.  Now, Dean says, the WWP legal team of thugs are trying to intimidate others with continued legal actions against the Grahams.

Guns Save Life has enormous respect for our nation’s servicemen and women, and little in the way of love for the anti-gun, anti-Christian yahoos over at Wounded Warriors.

So, in looking at their Form 990 from 2011 once again, I just now noticed the rather princely sum WWP pays its employees, on average, in salaries and benefits:  $86,211 to be exact.

Dear Wounded Warriors:

Would you like to hire me?

Sincerely,

Eh, just kidding.

I’m not sure how well I could sleep at night knowing money meant to help wounded American servicemen was being spent for me to be promoting WWP propaganda.   …and to defend the indefensible in terms of the tiny percentage of money Wounded Warriors actually gives in grants.

Here’s their Form 990.

It’s not pretty.

But what do you expect of these scoundrels?

Here’s a reprise of what we posted about them earlier this year:

Wounded Warriors Project earned our ire about a year ago when they made it clear they didn’t want to partner with gun owners to help them fundraise.  Or Christians (read on).

More recently, they sued a tiny, all-volunteer “Help Indiana Veterans” group for calling them out on the tens of millions WWP spends on salaries and the paltry three or four pennies on the dollar they apparently spend on actual grants.

Word of Wounded Warriors Project and its shameful scam-like handling of monies is spreading, thanks in part to a report at the huge “Veterans Today” blogsite.

Wounded Warriors Project A Legal Scam

by Alex Graham
(Veterans Today) – As we are coming to find out, wounded Vets are big money. Considering I’m 146% disabled, I’m trying to figure out how to tap into this. The only thing I can see is to start my own 501(c)(3) and start cooking the books with a big $300 K a year salary for my work. Member and eagled-eyed scrutinizer Bruce spotted this heartbreaking article. Just when we thought it was safe to come out of the woods after the last news of the Big Six VSOs padding their bank accounts on the backs of all our disabled, along comes this article and investigation revealing nothing is sacred among thieves.

If you were thinking about donating to the Wounded Warrior Project, think twice. It would behoove you to get in your car and drive cross-country to deliver the funds to the charity you hope to help. More money would end up in their hands than entrusting it to the WWP for disbursement. The Beatles song Tax Man comes to mind- Here’s one for you, nineteen for me. Here’s what I received. It’s ugly.

I’m really sad to read this about the Wounded Warrior Project. I have definitely been a supporter up to now. The attached 2011 990 tax return is a real eye opener! For one, that’s a lot of BIG salaries they are paying at the first and apparently the second (outsourced) level for executive compensation! Obviously it’s not only corporations that can get greedy.

 

Initially they refused to even appear on Tom Gresham’s GunTalk radio show.

Then, after a backlash of angry gun owner backlash via social media and the web, Wounded Warriors reversed course and said they would appear.

The appearance on the radio show was a complete and utter trainwreck and was ended earlier than planned after their well-paid executive director Steve “Money Money Money” Nardizzi said gun owner partnership was unwelcome.  Here’s our report immediately after the radio interview, which was heard by tens, if not hundreds of thousands of gun owners.

Nardizzi, for being so well-paid, utterly fumbled.

He tried to spin his way out of the mess but only managed to spin himself in deeper, offering all sorts of weak excuses why WWP couldn’t partner with gun-related sponsors.  He cited sponsorships with cyclists and how WWP had cut back on those sponsorships because of some sort of inferior return on investment.

Gresham pressed Nardizzi, saying that WWP had even changed language on their website from firearms to the more incendiary word “weapon”.

Nardizzi offered every excuse imaginable, but in the end Gresham pinned him down as saying that while gun owners are absolutely welcome to send money to WWP, they could not use the logo.

Gresham said that sounds an awful lot like WWP not wanting to associate with gun owners.  “We’ll take your money, but we don’t want to be seen with you,” Gresham said, paraphrasing him.

Nardizzi tried to deny this, but it was a lost cause to anyone with half a lick of common sense and intelligence.

“We’ll take your money and you can do fundraisers for us, but we won’t let you use our logo!” Tom says, mocking Nardizzi’s attempts to spin the truth.

Looking back, I think it was truly God’s work that led us to this discovery, as according to their IRS filings, in 2011 it would seem as though they only gave a little over $5 million in grants on nearly $150 million in income.

Speaking of God, it’s not just gun people that Wounded Warriors Project doesn’t want to be seen with – it’s Christians too.   That’s right.  They don’t want affiliations with  Christian-based groups either.

Fundraiser at the Playboy Mansion? No problem (twice, in fact).

Fundraiser at a church?  Can’t have that.

It’s up to you to whom you give your hard-earned charitable contributions.

Is Wounded Warrior Project worthy?  That’s up to you.