Helping Hospitalized Veterans For Veterans - 3068 Words

Nonprofit organizations have become the interest of many financial investigations over the last twenty years. One firm that found themselves on the wrong end of media scrutiny is Helping Hospitalized Veterans also known as HHV. Helping Hospitalized Veteran’s mission is to help veterans who have been hospitalized rehab from their injuries quicker. This mission is accomplished by making craft kits for veterans to enjoy and take their minds off their current situation. The mission helps recovering veterans in two ways, first the actual act of using impacted muscle groups to make the specialized crafts help aid with manual dexterity. Also Veterans have their minds stimulated while working on the various crafts provided by HHV. The mission of†¦show more content†¦HHV was founded by a nonprofit guru named Robert Chaplin, who has founded over 30 nonprofit organizations. Roger was the first CEO of HHV and served in that position until his retirement in 2009. Congress first took issue with HHV in 1998 and the founder and CEO was called to testify in front of congress and give an account for the way HHV and his other charities had used funds given by the public. Chaplin vehemently denied the allegations and even went as far as to describe himself as the most honest person in a room full of congressmen and women (Walker, 2012). No immediate charges were filed, but in 2006 Help Hospitalized Veterans once again came under fire for some questionable operating procedures. In 2012 the state of California, where HHV is headquartered filed a lawsuit against the nonprofit organization. Among the complaints were that only one third of the donations to the nonprofit firm actually went to help veterans. Also, it was alleged that HHV paid its executive â€Å"excessive† compensation and used donations to buy country club membership and condominiums all while unlawfully using donated money to start a completely different nonprofit organization (Fitzpatrick Griffin, 2012). The media coverage and backlash was intense and swift. The results of the 2012 lawsuit filed by the state of California are still the fourth entry to populate when Help Hospitalized Veterans is typed into a Google search