The biggest problem with Russell Wilson’s foundation is the reluctance to admit there is a problem.
He’s had plenty of chances to do so. So have the people that work for and around that foundation. They could have addressed or at least acknowledged the issues when Jason Wolf of the Arizona Republic was reporting the story that was published last week. They could have done so after the story was published. Instead, they’ve chosen to dispute the methods used to measure the fund-raising totals while refusing to earnestly engage with scrutiny.
This is too bad for a number of reasons. It’s too bad for the people who donated to Wilson’s non-profit organization because they’re not getting the transparency that the rules governing non-profits are supposed to provide. It’s too bad for those fans who understandably love Wilson and are being led to defend him in a way that doesn’t line up with the reality of the situation. Most of all, it’s too bad because the inability to honestly reckon with the potential shortcomings is actually intensifying the skepticism and hostility he’s facing from people who already assume the worst about him and they’re making someone like me — who certainly doesn’t dislike Wilson — roll my eyes because he won’t acknowledge what are fairly obvious issues.
But for whatever reason, Wilson and the others involved with the foundation are unable to come out and say, “You know, there are definitely some things we could have and should have done better. Here’s the steps we’re taking to correct that.”
Instead, we get the new executive director of the foundation providing an interview to an especially sympathetic reporter who produced a story that was closer to a piece of public relations than it was journalism.
Russell Wilson retweeted that story on Saturday from his own account. Later that day made a post with the caption “We will always care more about impact than credit …”
I don’t doubt Wilson’s sincerity with regard to this message nor his motivation for providing it. I think he’s at the end of his worst year professionally and he’s feeling attacked for his honest and good-faith efforts to be generous toward others.
Russell Wilson has given of his time, going to Seattle Children’s Hospital going back to his rookie year to visit kids who are sick and hurting. He has in fact spent years working with Albertsons and Safeway to help with fund-raising campaigns. I remember him ending press conferences by saying, “Strong against cancer,” and curling his arms to flex his biceps in a body-builder’s pose. He recorded advertisements. His profile undoubtedly helped not only in terms of getting people to give, but involving a company like Door-Dash in a United Way campaign that resulted in meals being delivered to people suffering from food insecurity. Corporate sponsors are more likely to be interested because of the attention that Wilson’s involvement would bring.
The millions that were raised, the lives that were affected? That’s all very real, and if you think Wilson did all of that so that he could pay a chief strategy officer $200,000 under the table then I think you really do have a deep-seated animosity toward Wilson that defies any logic.
Wilson’s foundation is not a scam, it’s not a fraud. It’s a real institution with big visions that has suffered from some difficulties that are unfortunately fairly common when athletes found their own non-profit organizations.
It is not in any conceivable way comparable to Brett Favre’s situation. Favre helped steer state money intended to help poor families in one of the country's poorest states to the construction of a volleyball arena at the school where his daughter played. If you said, "Brett Favre should go to jail," my response would be, "Yeah. He probably should." You say the same thing about Russell Wilson, and I'd tell you that you're being an absolute and utter moron.But there are problems here. The foundation did have a chief strategy officer making a relatively high salary who also worked for the family in a separate capacity. At the very least, this outside arrangement was not disclosed as it was required to be. More seriously, it creates the possibility the executive was being paid by the foundation for work that fell outside the foundation’s mission, which is a no-no. Tarpley is apparently no longer at the foundation. I’m not sure why neither he nor anyone associated with the non-profit organization has provided anything approaching transparency regarding his role, but they haven’t. The reporter, Jason Wolf, was left to quote from LinkedIn profiles.
Next comes the question of efficiency: How well did the foundation take the money that was donated and funnel it to the people it was seeking to help? Now, I want to stop here for just a moment to make one thing very clear: It is impossible to judge a foundation’s effectiveness by comparing its revenue (which includes donations) versus expenses. The reason there’s no magic ratio or specific guideline is because of the range of ways that non-profit organizations function.
Some are largely fund-raising entities, meaning they collect money which is then distributed to people or organizations whose work falls within the mission. Essentially, they collect money which is then given away via grants and for an organization like this, the goal is to have as much of that money go to the recipients as possible.
Other non-profit organizations provide services and programs that help fulfill the mission, which means the donations are funding services provided directly by the non-profit. The expenses for providing this aid should not be confused with overhead or administrative expenses. That is direct assistance. Now, Wolf’s reporting spelled out that from the Why Not You Foundation’s inception in 2014 through 2021 – the last year tax records are available – it had collected $7.5 million. It had given away $2.8 million of that total as grants to other non-profits. Not only is it a concerning ratio, but it was getting worse. In 2020 and 2021, less than a quarter of the revenue was given away to other charities.
This leads to the question Wilson and his foundation faced this question first when Wolf was reporting the story: What other services was the foundation providing that would result in such a low percentage of the revenue being given away?
Instead of honestly engaging with some potential problems, the people associated with the foundation and later Wilson himself insisted on pointing to the larger fund-raising totals that its partners collected to justify the money the Why Not You Foundation spent on its own salaries and expenses.
Essentially, the explanation is that while the Why Not You Foundation gave $836,000 to Seattle Children’s Hospital over the course of its existence, it should be viewed as having contributed more than $10 million by adding in the proceeds collected by Albertsons and Safeway from shoppers who rounded up.
There might be some merit to this. After all, Wilson did contribute his time and his profile to help Albertsons and Safeway publicize their fund-raising efforts. He was part of United Way of King County campaign that included DoorDash. It’s also worth pointing out that he did spend his time — which is probably the most valuable thing he can give — visiting Children’s Hospital and while that would not show up on his foundation’s financial report it carries an incredible amount of value.
But now let me ask you a question: Did Wilson need a foundation to do these things? I’m not making an accusation, but rather asking an actual and earnest question. If the bulk of the funds that Wilson and others at the foundation are pointing to were collected by other non-profit organizations, why does Wilson need a separate foundation with its own chief financial officer – whom Wilson went to high school with in Virginia – making $60,000 annually for 15 hours of work per week, which is what Scott Pickett made in 2021?
The problem with pointing to the $10 million raised for Seattle Children’s Hospital or the $3 million in meal deliveries along with DoorDash isn’t that the help wasn’t provided or that the total was exaggerated. The issue is that it fails to account for the way the Why Not You Foundation in ways that could be seen as exaggerating its own role. This press release from 2019 is an example:
The Wilson Celebrity Invitational did not raise $2.6 million to benefit Seattle Children’s Hospital. According to the tax records, the Wilson Celebrity Invitational cost $860,113 in direct expenses and it reported $860,113 in revenue. Essentially it paid for itself. (Note: After initially publishing this story, I learned the contributions made to the foundation at that event would not have been counted as revenue. The contributions became part of the foundation’s revenue for 2019.)
Now, the Why Not You Foundation did donate to Seattle Children’s Hospital in 2019, but the total it gave was $78,000. The rest of the $2,616,625 on that check presumably came from Albertsons Companies Foundation, which collected the money when shoppers chose to round up, and Wilson contributed by publicizing the campaign.
Was Wilson involved with the larger campaign? Absolutely. Did it help? Certainly. Was it necessary to have his own separate foundation to do this? That’s debatable. Does the way in which the Why Not You Foundation publicized its own contribution back in 2019 reflect the reality? I don’t think it does and that’s a problem because this isn’t a for-profit business or a marketing firm. It’s a non-profit organization that people get tax benefits for donating to on the presumption that money will go to activities aligned with the foundation’s mission. Given the financial information we know, it’s very fair to question how efficiently the Why Not You Foundation was doing this.
However, it appears that Wilson will seek to push through the scrutiny by insisting upon his earnestness, his desire to help, and in one sense, I can very much understand why. Wilson may feel that conceding anything at this point will be taken as validation of the worst suspicions and accusations that have been made. On the other hand, I think the refusal to address what are some very clear issues in his non-profit organization is going to do more to harm his image than to preserve it and in that way, creating a bigger problem than he already had.