NPO's Losing Trust

The Florida-based Wounded Warrior Project (WWP) ran into a media storm about its spending and fundraising practices at the beginning of 2016. As had happened with Susan G. Komen before it, there was an extended period of denial, followed by high level staff departures, then precipitous fundraising losses. Komen, in fact, slipped from its high rank of 21st among the nation’s fundraisers to 127th, or from a high take of nearly $350 million in 2011 pre-scandal to $198 million in 2015.

Similarly, the Wounded Warrior Project raised almost $373 million in donations for the 2015 fiscal year, but the next two years’ financials show the effects of the public scandal on public support. In 2016, the new executive director announced the organization had lost between $90 and $100 million in donations as a result of the scandal. Its latest Form 990 shows those revenues continued to drop; it raised only $211 million in donations in 2017.

Losing public trust for a non-profit organization is a serious matter. It's one thing if one person gets sticky-fingers; for they can call in the cops, press charges and ratchet down on audits and cross-checks. It's another thing if the management is being seen to living the high life at the expense of the donors.

(Past posts about Komen and WWP)

So I'm pretty sure that Trump is in Japan, doing his usual routine of shitting oh his hosts (if they are democracies) and praising autocrats/dictators, but you can go read the news yourself. As it seems, giving large amounts of money to Trump and then trying to leverage that for personal favors is turning into a risky affair.