After a financial free-fall, Wounded Warrior Project has steadied its operation and is back to seeing growth in donations for its mission to help those injured while serving after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attack.
It’s been a tough recovery for the Jacksonville-based nonprofit.
After falling from a peak of $373 million in donations for the 2015 fiscal year to $211 million in 2017 following media reports critical of the organization’s spending, Wounded Warrior received $246 million in donations for the 2018 fiscal year, a 16 percent increase.
Wounded Warrior Project spokesman Chris Obarski said the organization has experienced continued growth in the current fiscal year and expects to post another increase in donations.
“We are once again humbled by the American public’s generous and enthusiastic support of our nation’s wounded warriors and their families,” he said.
The IRS filing, which shows data for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2018, confirms statements made a year ago by Wounded Warrior Project CEO Mike Linnington that the organization had turned the corner financially.
Some charities face a test of survival when they are dependent on a single large source of support that suddenly ends, said Rena Coughlin, CEO for the Nonprofit Center of Northeast Florida, a Jacksonville organization that works with nonprofits.
But Wounded Warrior Project didn’t face that brand of challenge because it had a large mix of supporters, Coughlin said.
“That is a terrific, strong base, but it’s also very much based on their trust,” Coughlin said. “So you have to manage that trust and re-earn it, and I think that’s exactly what their strategy is.”
For much of the charity’s history, the question about the reports was how big the annual gain would be.
Wounded Warrior Project’s double-digit growth trajectory halted when media reports in early 2016 detailed “lavish spending.” The organization pushed back on the reports by saying they contained inaccurate information, but the charity also said it needed new executive leadership to strengthen some policies and procedures and “restore trust.”
The nonprofit went through intense scrutiny by organizations that track and evaluate charities. U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who is known for taking hard looks at charitable organization, launched his own inquiry that concluded in 2017 that Wounded Warrior Project was “taking steps to fix shortcomings.”
Wounded Warrior Project, whose corporate headquarters is on Belfort Road just off Butler Boulevard, laid off 15 percent of its employees nationwide in summer 2016. Those cuts brought its workforce down to the range of around 500 employees. The organization has since expanded to 695 employees.
The IRS report shows Wounded Warrior Project paid about $63 million in salary and compensation in the 2018 fiscal year, compared to $48.5 million the previous year.
Obarski said the organization reached 157,000 “warriors, family members and caregivers” in the 2018 fiscal year.
Wounded Warrior announced in 2018 it will put an additional $160 million in Warrior Care Network, a program launched in January 2016 right around the time national media reports hit on spending practices.
The five-year expansion of the Warrior Care Network is aimed at treating the “invisible wounds of war” such as post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.