Pro athletes running charities: "They don't know what they don't know"

On Today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: A few days before the Super Bowl, the NFL held its annual televised awards ceremony called the NFL Honors. They hand out trophies to players and coaches representing the best of football. Most of the awards are typical honoring on the field achievements. But one of the honors isn’t like the others… it has nothing to do with on the field performance. It's called the Walter Payton Man of the Year. That’s named after the late Chicago Bears running back. The winner gets $250,000 for charity.

The Arizona Republic's Jason Wolf and 5 Things Sunday Host James Brown discuss Wolf's investigation into this money and how it was used.

Jason's story: They are the NFL's most-honored players. Why did their nonprofits often spend so little on charity?

Contact Jason: https://twitter.com/JasonWolf

Contact James: https://twitter.com/jamesbrowntv

James Brown's archive: https://www.usatoday.com/staff/9225973002/james-brown/

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Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

James Brown:

Hello and welcome to 5 Things. I'm James Brown. It's Sunday, March 26, 2023. Thanks for joining me. Today's episode focuses on sports, charity, and money. One of the NFL's newer traditions happens during Super Bowl week. That's when they host their annual televised awards ceremony, the NFL Honors. They hand out trophies to players and coaches representing the best of football. Most of the awards are typical, the offensive and defensive players of the year, coach of the year, the league's most valuable player, but one of the honors is not like the others. It has nothing to do with on the field performance or so we're told. It's called the Walter Payton Man of the Year. That's named after the late Chicago Bears running back.

Each of the 32 teams has a nominee. 31 of them receive $40,000 for their charity. The winner, as today's guest described it, receives a gladiator statue, a gleaming brown trophy of a football player wearing a cape, a special patch for his jersey, and a quarter million dollars. Just about all of those players put that money into a charity. Jason Wolf and the team at the Arizona Republic spent months looking into where the money went and how those charities operate. Jason Wolf, welcome to 5 Things.

Jason Wolf:

Hey, thanks so much for having me.

James Brown:

In a word or phrase, how would you describe how this money is handled?

Jason Wolf:

In my investigation of the last quarter-century of nonprofits founded by Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award winners, a lot of times less than half of the money ends up actually being spent on program services or actual charitable activity.

James Brown:

Tell me more.

Jason Wolf:

Nonprofit watchdog groups expect efficient nonprofits to spend a minimum of between 65 to 75 cents of every dollar on program services or actual charity. What we're seeing is a lot of these players' nonprofits is spending far less than that on actual charity while the league and the NFL players associations celebrate them for their off the field efforts. It's a recurring problem. I spoke to about a dozen Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award winners and nominees, and they shared with me so many of the struggles that they had.

James Brown:

Based on your reporting, are you thinking this is ignorance? Is this incompetence? Is this malfeasance?

Jason Wolf:

These guys don't know what they don't know. The people who they hired don't know what they don't know. What I found is that there are two different paths that guys tend to take when they come into the NFL and they want to give back. They either put friends or family or associates in charge of a nonprofit. Meaning well doesn't mean that you are experienced or capable of running an efficient nonprofit. There is a significant learning curve, and this is not me saying it. These are the people who have done it. The other path guys take is they hire a management company, one of which I detailed is known as Prolanthropy and it claims to Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award winners as former clients and 30 nominees. I spoke with one of them, Peanut Tillman, who won the award in 2013, and he ended up leaving after the company, which charges 22 and a half percent of total revenue and then spends lavishly on overhead and so many of their managed nonprofits end up directing far less than 50 cents of every dollar to actual charity.

The league and the union are aware of this. Peanut Tillman told me that he told the NFL about his experience with Prolanthropy a decade ago. So he left after they took a piece of his Walter Payton Man of the Year Award money, and then proceeded to spend 20 some cents of every dollar on actual charity in 2014 despite reporting record revenues and expenses.

James Brown:

Before I move on to my next question, I do want to ask you about Prolanthropy. When you asked them about their practices, what was their response?

Jason Wolf:

They declined to comment on any specific questions I asked them about those six nonprofits that they ran, citing their client's privacy.

James Brown:

Are there some examples of some successful nonprofits run by NFL athletes?

Jason Wolf:

Eli Manning is a Walter Payton Man of the Year Award winner as well. He wanted to raise money for a local children's hospital to help fight pediatric cancer. What he did is he partnered directly with Hackensack New Jersey Memorial Health. The health system confirmed to me $22 million he helped raise directly for the hospital. So you don't need to create a 501(c)(3) nonprofit as an intermediary if your goal is to raise money to simply give it to another actual nonprofit. You can just use your celebrity and your platform to partner with an existing organization that's already efficient, that's already doing it well, and this is what experts advise.

James Brown:

Do you have a sense of why athletes are choosing to establish a entirely new organization?

Jason Wolf:

They are encouraged to give back by the league and the union and these prestigious awards. I've spoken to players, Delanie Walker, former tight end for the Tennessee Titans. He told me he hired a publicist specifically because he wanted to win the Walter Payton Man of Year Award, the big one, and then Prolanthropy reached out to Delanie through his publicist, and that's how Delanie Walker got hooked up with this company. He looked at all of the former big name pro athletes that the company used to manage, and he said, "Hey, this is amazing. This is a big step for me." The company said we raised $80,000, and then when he turned around and went to them and wanted to use the money to help build school libraries, they told him there was only 10. He's like, "Well, how could you put this out there?"

James Brown:

How do the league and union see this issue?

Jason Wolf:

They believe that they have taken appropriate steps to educate guys and vet these nonprofits on the front end. The fact that the issue exists and continues to exists makes it pretty clear that they're not doing enough. Maybe there would be fewer of these examples of guys looking to give back and finding themselves in problematic situations merely because they just didn't know what they didn't know to begin with.

James Brown:

Jason, thanks for joining me.

Jason Wolf:

I really appreciate you inviting me. Thank you so much.

James Brown:

Thanks to Jason Wolf for joining me and to Shannon Rae Green and Alexis Gustin for their production assistance. You can email podcasts@usatoday.com with your thoughts on the show. For all of us at USA Today, thanks for listening. I'm James Brown, and as always, be well.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Pro athletes running charities: "They don't know what they don't know"