Female veterans coming home; IAVA’s credibility problem
There’s a fairly good article at NBC News about female veterans returning home, sent to us by Green Thumb and Ex-PH2. My problem with it is that they quote Paul Rieckhoff in the article who says health care employers should be hiring more women veterans;
“There aren’t enough female health professionals in the VA system. There aren’t enough folks specialized in female health, especially around reproductive health. We’ve got to push the system to work harder for them,” said Paul Rieckhoff, chief executive officer and founder of IAVA
“The bottom line is you need someone who recognizes that female veterans are a critical part of this population and that they have unique needs,” added Rieckhoff, who served as a first lieutenant and infantry rifle platoon leader in Iraq during 2003 and 2004. “We’ve got women on our staff who say that a lot of times, when they walk into the VA, they get treated like a candy striper instead of like a returning warrior. As a country, we’ve got to go through a huge cultural shift.”
Really, Paul? You have women on your staff who talk first hand about the VA? Who are they exactly? Here’s a link to IAVA’s Staff & Board. There are 15 women listed in the staff of thirty-nine, and because they helpfully put “Veteran” next to their veterans’ names, I can easily see that none of the women on IAVA Staff are veterans. In fact, out of the thirty nine names, only 15 of the total are veterans. That’s including Paul. So thirty eight percent of IAVA employees are actual veterans. I’m pretty sure that even IVAW employs more veterans.
Wouldn’t you expect an organization that calls itself Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America to be employing more veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, especially if they’re out there telling employers and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs to hire more veterans? Maybe it’s just me. I’m sure this will trigger another piece at the Military Times machine and Stars & Stripes to provide cover for poor Paul who is being victimized by the evil blogger at TAH and all of his facts again.
Category: Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America
Thank you, Jonn. I love this blog.
John — Respectfully, the focus here should be on women’s reproductive care; especially veterans. This is clearly new territory both for the VA and the medical field. Most guys don’t think about long term about their own health, they same can be said about an 18 or 19 yo female in regards to her long term reproductive health. You add in the industrial environment and a combat zone, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a higher incidence of reproductive issues (infertility being one of them). With treatments such as IVF costing $10K+ per round, this is a pressing issue. I’m sure few women join the military with the thought of putting their reproductive health in jeopardy. I know it’s easy to focus on the females who shirk from deployments by getting pregnant, but there is a real long-term issue here. Already women, have a finite number of eggs and their chances of becoming pregnant decrease with age — would it be that surprising that infertility amongst female vets is higher then their civilian counterparts.
JMHO.
Here’s a clue: The VA, the IAVA, and everyone else can just stuff any interest they might think they have in my reproductive health. Clear enough?
I also don’t understand your beef with the percentage of veterans IAVA employs. I work for News Corp I can tell you that the amount of people who have military service is a tiny percentage (of my division of 300 there are < 5). It looks like they have a well-rounded staff and the fact that they have, what seems from the listed bios, people with skills that map very well to the positions is a positive thing. Furthermore, they don't seem overly staffed up for fund raising, they seem to have quite a few social workers on staff whose sole job is to help vets navigate benefits etc. To me that's hugely important. I haven't looked at charity navigator, but as long as their spending a majority of their $ as opposed to fund raising and C-level salaries, I'm good with them.
According to their Form 990 filing for 2011, they took in $7.5 million and $3.2 million went to salaries. They gave out $2000 in grants and $1.2 million in gift certificates. And $640,000 in “membership experiences” whatever that means. So that means they paid $3.2 million in salaries to redistribute about $2 million in membership benefits. I’m pretty sure that other veterans service organization hire more than 38% of their staff from the veterans’ pool of workers.
@ #3 that’s ludicrous. If you were married to a vet who couldn’t get pregnant and you were staring at $100Ks for IVF, you’d be singing a different tune.
Besides OWB, I think the VA doesn’t have small
Enough tools to handle your cash and prizes 😉
The VA, and any other vet-related groups, should be focused on making sure that women vets get their claims filed and that they get jobs.
I thought that piece was sappy and sloppy and asked a ridiculous question: how do we handle female vets? The same as other vets, dipstick. Duh!
And for the record, I never had any trouble finding a job, and I always had my Navy experience on my resume.
Uh, SkrtSkwrl . . . . you do realize what the “V” in “IAVA” stands for – right?
One would think that the board of a “veteran’s organization” that claims to speak for veterans of our two most recent wars would have a board composed largely if not exclusively of veterans of those wars. IAVA’s board doesn’t.
Further: if IAVA has such an interest in “women’s health” issues you’d also expect their board to have at least one or two female veterans. They have zero.
IAVA is also inconsistent as hell regarding their membership requirements. While they do appear to limit “full membership” to OIF/OEF veterans, hey also appear to allow non-veterans to join as “Civilian Supporters”. (Indeed, the majority of their board doesn’t seem to qualify for “full membership”.)
The above indicates that IAVA thus isn’t really a veteran’s group at all – even if they are using the word “Veteran” in their title. Rather, they’re just another political influence group looking for support – and money. And any reasonable analysis of their positions and public statements clearly shows that they’re hardly politically neutral when it comes to elections – and that support for veterans doesn’t exactly seem to be their primary goal.
Jonn was taking issue with the hypocrisy of the organization on all of those counts. You seem reasonably intelligent. I’m surprised anyone had to spell that out for you.
@SkrtSkwrl
The issue is that Paul has put himself and his organization out there as the premier voice for veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, yet the majority of his upper level staff have never served in the military. Are you telling me that out of all the service members that have been in theater, IAVA could not find people qualified to take those positions? I call Biden on that claim.
He has also presented himself as something that he wasn’t, and until he was called on it by the owner and the readers of this blog, he never though that his wearing a Bronze Star and a Special Forces unit patch was a big deal.
Talk about alarms sounding. Jeez. I am beginning to suspect that the soft-serve commentary is masking a frozen concoction of deep-seated disdain. SkrtSkwrl may be an apt tag if this is indeed a camped-out troll. Time always tells but comments sympathetic to IVAW make the time pass quickly.
SkrtSwrl, OWB is a woman.
I strongly suggest that you not act condescending or disdainful toward any of us women on this blog.
You will lose.
@ 12 …. Ain’t that the truth!
SCREEN NAME OR BLOG HANDLE ANALYZED
Subject: SkrtSkwrl
Subject has sexual identity issues complicated by lust for small furry rodents that live in the woods.
END OF ANALYSIS
Note: No rodents were harmed in the drafting of this satirical analysis. Complaints from any Transgendered Interest Group and or PETA can be directed to TAH World Headquarters which is located in the foothills of a mountain range somewhere in the UNITED STATES of AMERCICA.
Wonder how many non-veterans are on staff at American Legion and VFW?
I’d guess none.
IVAW…Losers.
they quote Paul Rieckhoff in the article who says health care employers should be hiring more women veterans;
I think you misinterpreted his statement. He is not asking for more female veterans to be hired into the health care field. He is asking the VA to provide more/better health care to female veterans. When women lose a lot of body mass, their reproductive organs are greatly affected (hence why female gymnasts are way small and they have no periods). For long periods of time, that could be detrimental. See this article for what can happen.
I am not a fan of Reickhoff, but I think what you are attributing to him is incorrect.
I think Paul’s quote was attributed correctly:
“We’ve got women on our staff who say that a lot of times, when they walk into the VA, they get treated like a candy striper”
Who are they? IAVA needs to hire female vets….and hire qualified vets instead of civilians. Walk the talk, so to speak. My opinion, ymmv.
I ran IAVA on charity navigator, here’s the result: http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=12257
Granted John is looking at the form 990
I have no affiliation with IAVA.
OWB — apologies, figuring out gender online can always be tricky
PH2 — not taking on the ladies, if you read my first post it was in favor of women’s reproductive care amongst vets.
Pat…one of the main posters here works for the Am Legion and is an Afghanistan vet. While I don’t have the numbers in front of me, I’d be willing to bet that 1–over 38 percent of their senior positions are filled by veterans, 2–they don’t spend over 75 percent of the money they take in ($25 per year dues) are spent on said staff or “gift cards.”
As a female and a veteran of OIF I really dont want the VA to focus on my reproductive health. I would much rather that they focus on things like my service connected injuries and PTSD. That is far more important to me. It takes on average 4 months for me to get an appointment with my Primary Care and at least 3 months just to be able to get in and see my shrink. Heaven forbid I should need anything outside of a medication refill because then its at least another 4 months to get the referral squared away and a visit to the other clinic. I dont know about anywhere else but we do have a Female Veterans Clinic here where (if I so choose) I can have any female type issues taken care of. Guess what, every time I walk by the place its damn near empty. While every other waiting area in the hospital complex is damn near at max capacity. Lets get the VA to work harder on the claims backlog, the suicide and PTSD issues and making sure that folks can actually get in to see a doctor before we start demanding care for reproductive health (unless of course it is in fact service connected).
SkrtSkwrl: the Charity Navigator report you cited was based on 2010 data. The Charity Navigator screen clearly says that. The data Jonn quoted was from 2011, so it’s more recent.
I’d also question the characterization Charity Navigator gives for 2010 of IAVA spending 87% of it’s money on “Program Expenses”. Based on 2010 data posted on Charity Navigator, that equates (in 2010) to roughly $4.89M of $5.38M being spent on Program Costs.
However, Charity Navigator goes on to define Program Costs as the “percent of its total budget a charity spends on the programs and services it exists to deliver.” That would appear to in general exclude staff salaries as an element of Program Costs. And indeed Charity Navigator defines Administrative Expenses as being the “percent of its total budget a charity spends on overhead, administrative staff and associated costs, and organizational meetings.”
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=470
What IAVA is doing is allocating 75+% of it’s total employment costs – for 2011, per IAVA’s 990 that was $2,479,928 of a total employment cost of $3,274,510 – as “Program Costs”. That includes $101,500 of Rieckhoff’s annual salary of $140,000.
I’d love to know what goods/services Rieckhoff personally delivered to veterans and others other than hot air.
Last year, IAVA spent more 42.67% of it’s annual income ($7.5 million) in employee salary costs. For a nonprofit, that seems kinda high to me. And allocating 75+% of all employee salary and benefit costs as Program Costs seems rather fishy, too.
@ #18: So what the hell dif does my gender make? That, among other things, is none of your business! You have no business insinuating yourself into my life at all much profering opinions about my reproductive life. Or that of anyone to whom I might be married.
And PH? It’s not that the idiot WILL be lost in any battle with any of us – it already did.
Is it safe to say that the assumptions it made about the article are just about as valid as those made about posters here?
[…] TAH has a really interesting post on female vets coming home and the IAVA’s credibility problem. […]