What was Wounded Warrior Project's fundraising efficiency ratio in 2024 and 2025?

1. What WWP itself reports about fundraising efficiency

WWP’s public materials state the charity “invested $90 million in fundraising in 2024, around 24% of expenses,” and that over 70% of spending — more than $263 million — went to programs and services in fiscal 2024 ^{[1] [2] [3]}. Those are WWP’s headline numbers and their primary framing when asked about fundraising efficiency ^[1].

2. How outside reviewers calculate “fundraising efficiency” and the numbers they report

Charity Navigator defines fundraising efficiency as the amount spent to raise $1, calculated by dividing fundraising expenses by total contributions ^[6]. Using reporting compiled by independent observers, Paddock Post and other summaries list WWP revenue around $385 million and expenses about $376 million for 2024; if fundraising expense was $90 million against roughly $385 million in revenue, that equates to about $0.23–$0.24 spent per dollar raised — consistent with WWP’s 24% figure ^{[4] [7] [5]}.

3. Reconciling “percent of expenses” vs. “dollars raised” definitions

Different charities and watchdogs report fundraising efficiency using either (a) fundraising as a share of total expenses (WWP’s “24% of expenses” language) or (b) fundraising expense divided by total contributions to yield “cost to raise $1” (Charity Navigator’s preferred metric) ^{[1] [6]}. Available sources show both approaches produce similar results for WWP in 2024 — roughly 24% of expenses and about $0.23–$0.24 spent per dollar raised given reported revenue near $385 million ^{[1] [6] [4]}.

4. What reporting says (and doesn’t) about 2025 fundraising efficiency

Sources in the provided set include WWP press pieces and third‑party coverage into 2025 but do not give a clear single line item for “fundraising expense in 2025” or an explicit 2025 fundraising‑efficiency ratio. WWP’s 2025 newsroom and program pages reference awards, grants and new program funding but do not publish a single fundraising‑efficiency percentage for fiscal 2025 in the retrieved results ^{[8] [9] [10]}. Therefore, available sources do not mention a definitive WWP fundraising efficiency ratio for 2025 and do not supply the raw 2025 fundraising expense and revenue figures needed to compute it.

5. Context and contested points watchdogs raise

Multiple watchdogs and analysts note that overhead calculations can be affected by accounting choices such as joint cost allocation and how non‑cash items are booked; CharityWatch and others have previously argued such methods can make overhead appear lower or higher depending on treatment ^{[11] [12]}. Charities for Veterans and similar sites calculate WWP’s program share at about 70.2% of a $376 million budget and overhead at about 29.8% for 2024, flagging joint cost accounting (12.9%) as material to interpretation ^{[12] [5]}.

6. Takeaway for readers deciding how to interpret these numbers

If you accept WWP’s self‑reporting and the $385 million revenue / $376 million expense frame used by independent summaries, the fundraising cost in 2024 was about $90 million — roughly 24% of expenses and about $0.23–$0.24 per dollar raised ^{[1] [4] [7]}. There is no singular 2025 fundraising‑efficiency figure in the supplied documents; available sources do not mention a 2025 ratio, so any 2025 calculation would require WWP’s audited 2025 financial statements or Form 990 not included here ^{[8] [13]}.

Limitations: this analysis uses only the documents supplied. I report WWP’s own phrasing and outside calculations that rely on slightly different denominators; both matter when comparing charities or judging “efficiency” ^{[1] [6] [12]}.