A good place to check on charities before you decide is http://www.charitynavigator.org/

According to their information, the expenses breakdown for Wounded Warrior Project is 34% fundraising, 6.1% Administrative, leaving 59.9% for Program Expenses.

Contrast that with Disabled American Veterans Charitable Service Trust, which spends 96.5% for Program Expenses. See http://cst.dav.org/

You might also consider Special Operations Warrior Foundation, a charity providing support and assistance to active and reserve personnel serving in the U.S. Special Operations Command and their families. It has Program Expenses of 85.4%. See http://www.specialops.org/

Giving to a charity where 85 to 97 cents of every dollar I donate goes to those in need makes more sense to me than giving to the highly touted Wounded Warrior Project....

OK. Ha! Ha!

By the way, new data. He made began annually making $473,015 in 2014 with an anal $100,000 raise.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/08/vet-charity-s-new-fight-to-waste-your-cash.html

I've pulled stuff like that all my life, which is probably why I'm so aware of it when others do it.But all of this reminds me of when I was 6 years old and in the 1st grade. When I was 4 or 5, my mom and I would sit side by side on the living room couch with a book between us. Usually a large print children's book. As she read the story to me, she would point to the words which I saw upside down. In the 1st grade the teacher asked each of us to read a sentence in the primer once we had been taught our letters and how they were made into words. The sentences were very short such as "Sam can run. See Sam run." When it was my turn I turned the book upside down and read the whole story. The teacher would turn the book rightside up, and I would promptly turn it upside down again. My mom didn't realize that she was teaching me how to read upside down. The poor teacher tried to correct me, but I think she gave up and put me down as retarded (the word for it then) which was easier on her than trying to spend a lot of time with me.

Execllent. My understanding is he took off in the P-38 an never came back, with nobody knowing if it was ground fire, an enemy fighter, or just plain old mechanical problems that put him into the sea. Thank you for this link.

shame on you Sean Hannity. another overpaid useful idiot

Yes, but I did it to suggest his method of payment.

I picked up new data and you can see the writer's name and picture. The CEO made $473,015 in 2014 after somehow receiving a $100,000 raise.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/08/vet-charity-s-new-fight-to-waste-your-cash.html

I misspelled annually. So did you.


Blush! Blush!

Charity Navigator gives them a pretty good rating. They say that 59.9% goes to programs, 34% goes to fundraising and 6% administrative. Its right to be concerned about how our hard earned $$ are spent however these numbers are reasonable when you look at good charities.

Shucks. I almost wrote "a year" instead of anally spelling annually in a way the spell checker could not catch. Recall once writing martial when I meant to write marital and it went public in a newspaper back in the 70s. I just had a mechanical typewriter back then.

You're welcome. New data.

CEO made $473,015 in 2014 after a $100,000 raise, according to a writer who put both his name and face on his article.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/08/vet-charity-s-new-fight-to-waste-your-cash.html

I Binged that sucker! (See the writer's name and face).

CEO made $475,015 in 2014 due to a $100,000 raise.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/08/vet-charity-s-new-fight-to-waste-your-cash.html

Sounds like he should really make $300K anally!

I too, donated heavily to this charity,. It was sponsored by our company, and they Marine Corporal, with god-awful burns presented to us to show the value.

Very irritating that this, like many other charities, are really just the leadership begging, using needy icons for sympathy!

Thanks for the info!

Antoine de Saint-Exupery was a talented man. A prolific writer and a pilot. He wrote "Night Flight" which was made into a Clark Gable movie about flying air mail by guiding beacon lights over the Andes and up eastern South America.

He was shot down in WWII by a German pilot. There is a very nice song written about him called Saint Ex by Widespread Panic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwM6fmkQuDI&feature=youtu.be

But of this bread men die. Indeed. Nice post.

I knew a musician who was raised in the Church of the Salvation Army. He had a lot to say about their religious conditioning; none of it was good.

I think the Salvation Army is a lot better from the outside than from the inside.

Jan

Wow, Esceptico, that is potent rhetoric. "Carnivorous idols". That sums it up.

Wow again.

Jan, socks knocked off now

"Why does this always happen on a Friday, and usually on a Friday before a holiday? "

Because the universe is secretly inimical. Think about it: black holes, relativity and quantum tunneling? Who thought up this crazy place?

Jan

Please, dear Allosaur, don't take this the wrong way, but you inadvertently gave me a good guffaw when you caused a couple of weird pictures to pop into my head. "The CEO makes $300,000 anally." I pictured him leaning over a spacious desk as his secretary shoved money up his butt. Then, in the article, there was a references to the "vase majority." How many vases in a majority? One needs to ponder.

Thanks

The Wounded Warriors Project has a great name. It also has a great commercial with the mellow bass voice of Trace Atkins talking and singing while showing recovering limbless soldiers. Who wouldn't be moved? I have thought about a contribution to them. I will no longer even think about it.

Salvation Army is one of my chief charities. The absolute best use of religion I have ever found.

I've been back and forth on The Wounded Warrior Project. I've heard and read they do okay and then that it’s really for some executives and their friends. Seems a majority of charities have great staffs with CEO's to run the business and them and their friends can draw some pretty nice salaries. After all you need the talent to pull in the money in any business is the theory. But 50% plus or minus of the proceeds going to the cause doesn't particularly excite me in the least. FOX and many, many, other stations carry a lot of commercials for WWP, almost as many as the commercial for vehicle insurance by the weirdo in the white uniform. I had that insurance a long time ago and dropped them after a dispute. Their advertising budgets have to be tremendous. Could not insurance cost a lot less money without the constant advertising every hour of every day on every station?

The government, through the VA, helps wounded warriors, but in many cases it is not enough. I was having some issues a few years ago so was advised to go to the VA and sign up on the Agent Orange Registry. That got me a complete physical and psychological evaluation. They found issues but in order to get VA Medical to address them I had to file a claim for service related issues which they determine are disabilities. I got a partial disability rating which gives me a fair monthly tax free income, plus I get VA Medical and drug coverage for a very small co-pay. This is more than enough for most wounded warriors but there are others that need much more. That’s where a real charity can help.

I believe a charity should be run by a CEO, someone who has already proven their ability to lead and to make money for the organization, someone that has already made their own fortune in a legitimate position and might actually not draw a salary at all, or draw a minimal salary, say one dollar a year. Someone like Mitt Romney, or even the guy with the funny hair that’s running for president now, would make perfect candidates to run a big charity. They could get their rich friends to help with the administration.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) buys those little VFW Buddy Poppies out of their own funds, not from the donation money, and offers them to the public a couple times a year. My Post for example pulls in some pretty healthy cash donations which go into a fund that is given out to needy vets and or their families. 100% of the money goes out to help the vets. No one gets a cut, no one gets a wage, the administrators are all (usually vets) volunteers. There are other charities that benefit veterans as well at a low cost for overhead. So I would say when you see someone giving out those poppies, be generous. I was privileged with my daughter to sit in front of a market one Memorial Day and give out those poppies. We did not sell them and anyone that wanted one got one, no donation necessary. It was a great feeling for me when someone came by and stuffed a hundred dollar bill in the can and didn’t even want the poppy. It was a great feeling to see many people putting in 20’s, 10, 5’s, even 1’s, and some kids giving their change. One told me that I shouldn’t be thanking him as he thanked me while stuffing the can. I know where my donations will go in their entirety to the cause. The VFW helps local veterans directly as well, no overhead. There are others that are way above the fifty percent's.

If we can get a new definition for marriage, I’m sure we should be able to redefine charity too. Personally I just don’t think 50% qualifies as a charity. Gotta go, going to the 4th of July Parade in Kirkland, WA in a couple hours. And yesterday the pipe between the house and the street broke, so no water in the house. It will be Monday before it can be replaced. Why does this always happen on a Friday, and usually on a Friday before a holiday?

I did not at all feel free in the land of the free with the draft hanging over my head during the Vietnam War which I opposed as a useless folly. It finally happened in 1969 and I wound up in the Marines. Fortunately I was not also sent to be possibly killed or maimed for nothing. And I did not feel free until two years later when a taxi carried me out through a gate with an honorable discharge in my luggage.