Only a small percentage of the $29 million raised by the
National Vietnam Veterans Foundation has gone to actually help veterans,
CNN reports.
The foundation, headed up by two military veterans, President Thomas Burch and Vice President David Kaufman, brought in $8.6 million in donations for what its website says is used for "aiding, supporting and benefiting America's veterans and their families."
Burch and Kaufman each took salaries of $65,000 from that.
Other expenses included:
- Travel: $133,000
- Telephones: $16,000
- Unnamed awards: $21,000
- Other expenses: $70,000
- Parking: $8,000
But the bulk of the $8.6 million – a total of $7.7 million – went to paid telephone fundraisers.
Only $122,000 in small grants went to veterans causes, CNN reported.
Michael Thatcher, CEO of the watchdog group Charity Navigator called National Vietnam Veterans Foundation "a zero-star organization," adding, "I can't go lower than that."
"They don't have an independent board of directors, they actually don't even have a comprehensive board of directors – only three members on the board at this point in time and some of them are family," Thatcher told CNN. "So one can say, is this representative of an independent board? It's not."
Burch is also a lawyer for the Department of Veterans Affairs. The department told CNN that Burch's dual roles are not necessarily a conflict of interest, but said it was "reviewing" the situation after being contacted about the story.
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