The rambunctious Wounded Warrior Project embraces multichannel strategies to fund its mission to transition America’s youngest disabled vets back into civilian life.

By Margaret Battistelli Gardner

“We want our folks to be professional development folks. We want them to have the credentials necessary to do the job and to be able to work in their world, in that fundraising world,” he adds.

Finally, Melia doesn’t put much stock in traditional efficiency ratings for nonprofits, i.e., watchdog groups like GuideStar, Charity Navigator, the American Institute of Philanthropy and the Better Business Bureau. Relying, instead, on outcomes and the organization’s own measures of success, he says, allows it to do what it needs to without worrying about how many stars it gets. (For the time being, however, that’s not too much of a concern because WWP hasn’t been around long enough to be officially “rated,” though Melia expects three stars when the time comes.)