Roger Chapin

Roger Chapin is a San Diego, California, philanthropist. In 1971, Chapin founded and serves as president of the charity organization Help Hospitalized Veterans (HHV). In mid-2004, Chapin founded and serves as president of the Coalition to Salute America's Heroes (CSAH).

Profiles
According to his HHV bio, "Roger Chapin is a graduate of Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont and a veteran of the U.S. Army Finance Corps. Roger has founded a number of organizations that have benefited veterans as well as society at large.

"Chapin began his mission of assisting American combat soldiers when he established the Vietnam Gift Pac program which distributed over 600,000 Gift Pacs to the most forward areas of Vietnam. In 1971 he founded the Help Hospitalized Veterans program after visiting Marines at the Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego. The program has significantly changed the lives of Americaâ??s hospitalized veterans and active duty military personnel within the 172 Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Centers, 82 State Veterans Nursing Homes and some 28 Military Hospitals throughout the world.

"This program has now distributed over 18,800,000 therapeutic arts and crafts kits enabled by $200,000,000 in contributions from generous donors throughout America. Help Hospitalized Veterans has brought millions of caring Americans closer to the men and women of the armed forces. . . past and present, just with a simple caring donation of a craft kit. Life long pen pal relationships have been created because of HHV and this simple idea.

"In Chapinâ??s quest to focus on the countryâ??s interest in improving life for not only veterans, but the elderly and the youth of America, he founded many organizations to help to do just that. War on Cancer, Let's Beat Deficits, Citizens for a Drug Free America and Project Drug Free. In 1990 Chapin founded the G. I. Gift Pac program which distributed 880,000 Gift Pacs to American combat troops stationed in the Persian Gulf. ...

"As founder of the Basic Skills Learning Program to tutor disadvantaged children after school, Roger is particularly proud of the fact that based on Metropolitan Achievement Test results, the tutored children achieved 71%, 120% and 150% gains in math reading and language arts respectively over their untutored elementary school classmates. The Jackson School District in Jackson, Michigan is now committed to expanding the program.

"Among Chapin's private accomplishments, he was a successful real estate developer in San Diego County, Founder of 'Fun Art' creative coloring sets, and the founder of USAOPOLY, the creator and distributor of the very popular special editions of Monopoly. ...

Chapin is "preparing to found Build a Better America, a non-profit organization which will serve as the umbrella for a series of major new social initiatives. The first of these is Conquer Cancer and Alzheimer's Now and Fix America's Schools.

"In total, non-profit organizations founded and directed by Roger Chapin have generated over $225 million in public donations."

Excessive salary
On November 9, 2007, ABC News reported that Roger Chapin and his wife, as founders and employees of the charitable organization, Help Hospitalized Veterans, paid themselves more than half a million dollars a year in salary. The American Institute of Philanthropy claims that of the $70 million that HHV received in contributions last year, only 31% went to the charitable cause, leading to a grade of "F" from the watchdog group.

According to Daniel Borochoff, the president of AIP, "Chapin is a charity entrepreneur. He's very good at setting up charities that don't do so much charitable but bring in lots, lots of money."