More Congressional Talk...awaiting some action

by Gary Snyder

To his credit, Senator Chuck Grassley has brought to the public’s attention many abuses in the charitable sector. 

But change, in the past, has not been readily forthcoming (ie, American Red Cross, Smithsonian)

Now, Grassley and the Senate Judiciary Committee have been looking into the spending at the Wounded Warrior Project, specifically trying to make sense of the proportion of spending on veterans programs against the total budget. 

The organization provided the committee with the requested financial documents around a month ago, and Grassley yesterday sent a follow-up letter requesting further clarification.

WWP’s claims that it spends 80 percent of its expenses on veterans’ services.  Charity watchdog groups, which have estimated the percentage as low as 43 percent excluding fundraising related costs.

The committee questioned even the services themselves: “It appears the vast majority of the 94 percent of program services provided to veterans consisted of tickets to sporting events,” Grassley said in the letter. Grassley further questioned the characterization of placing $37 million over 2013 and 2014 into a trust fund as a program expense.

The senator finally ventured that, “Of the $242 million WWP spent on program expenses in FY 2014, it appears that approximately $150 million of it was not actually spent on veterans by WWP and a large portion of it was in-kind donations.”

The Grassley letter concluded with a set of further questions to be completed by June 1^st, including a request for the independent review of spending practices commissioned by the board and copies of the fundraising materials against which the joint cost allocations were made.

Lets hope that the WWP response fully addresses the questions and that the committee concerns don’t get lost in the daily Finance Committee charge.

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