With so many veterans’ charities and organizations operating, it can be difficult for those who want to help America’s veterans ensure that their donations are going to the people they’re intended to help.
One group says it has the solution.
Charities for Vets uses a straightforward rating process to help donors easily determine which veteran-focused organizations are managing their funds efficiently and getting the most money to the intended recipients.
Richard Berman, Executive Director of the RAM Foundation, told The Daily Wire he launched Charities for Vets because he saw just how many philanthropic groups were not using their resources effectively — and because, ultimately, the people that would be hurt by waste and abuse in charitable organizations would be those the charities were intended to help.
“We talk so often about ‘waste, fraud, and abuse,’” Berman said. “How many people are abusing their donors’ trusts by not delivering on the services they’ve promised?”
Charities For Vets answers those questions with a simple process. The group evaluates charities using data gleaned from IRS forms and other official filings, with the goal of determining “who is wasting money?
Berman explained what he believed set Charities for Vets apart from other watchdog organizations.
“There are a lot of watchdogs already out there, and I wouldn’t have done this if I thought they were doing a good job or if I didn’t think I could do it better,” he told The Daily Wire. “People are contributing money to organizations that are poorly run, and average small donors often don’t know those ratings even exist — or won’t pay for subscription to access the information.”
He also noted that Charities For Vets scores organizations differently from other watchdogs. While some organizations gave ratings for different areas and then averaged them, he said, Charities For Vets scores each area, “and a fail in any area results in a ‘not-recommended’ status.”
“We have told people that if we have given you a poor rating, we will consider unique situations and change recommendations — and year to year, they can see changes in status if they are doing better or worse in any area. We have seen new heads of charities come in, call us, and make changes accordingly,” Berman added. “We are very sensitive to not making a mistake — a personal responsibility on my part. We are all volunteers. No one has any incentive to do anything different than call balls and strikes.”
Vietnam veteran and retired Marine Corp Colonel Pete Metzger, a member of the Charities For Vets advisory board, told The Daily Wire that Berman recruited him to be a part of the project. Once he saw the concept, he was sold.
“It sounded to me like third grade common sense, and that’s important for an infantry guy. If people are going to give money, and thank God they do, the money ought to be going to where they think it’s going,” he said, adding, “The genius is in its simplicity, it’s not complicated at all. If you want to give some money, and we hope you do, just go to the website and look for the recommendation. It’s like a Consumer Report, but for charities instead of vacuum cleaners.”
Metzger went on to say that the results already seemed to be speaking for themselves.
“From 2022 to 2023, the charities that we did not recommend saw a drop in donations of 11.25%, or $125 million. Those that we recommended saw their donations increase by $23 million — and those that we highly recommended had an increase of $65 million.”
“We’re not in the business to stop people from donating, we just want to divert funds to the charities that are doing the right things and encourage the charities that aren’t to fix things,” Metzger added.
Fellow advisory board member and retired Navy Commander Kirk Lippold told The Daily Wire that the project held a special meaning for him: he was Commander of the USS Cole when it was attacked by terrorists in 2000.
Knowing what it was like to watch service members and their families who were dependent on the help they received from charitable organizations, Lippold said that it was doubly important to make sure that those charities were being smart with the money coming in from donors.
For some that earned a “not recommended” rating, he said that it wasn’t necessarily about the organizations being bad.
“It’s not that these organizations don’t do good things, it’s that they’re spending too much money on overhead and fundraising — too little ultimately gets to the people who are supposed to be getting it.”
“Americans are incredibly ingenious and hardworking, and they always want to see their money spent efficiently and effectively. This process is the best way I’ve seen to ensure that the vast majority of it is going to the people who need that help,” Lippold said. “Our organization is the gold standard that we want people to turn to in order to determine which organizations give the most to the veterans who serve our great nation.”
One thing that all three men stressed was that ratings were not permanent. Every year, Charities for Vets evaluates the top 100 military charities — and if those organizations make changes for better or for worse, those changes will be reflected in their ratings for that year.
They’re also open to challenges from organizations that feel they’ve been evaluated unfairly.
“It’s possible that either we miss something or they might report things in way that we can’t easily see what they’re doing. We are always willing to have a conversation about whether we’ve evaluated them fairly,” Lippold said, adding that if new information presents a different picture, that rating can change.
“And we do have organizations that are still very upset about getting a ‘not recommended’ rating,” he said. “But this is the gold standard, and you can get as upset as you want, but we’re not going to change our criteria.”
Charities for Vets is run entirely by volunteers. Donations to their organization are used instead to promote their service and connect more people to military charities that are most effective at getting donations to the intended recipients.
“For every $50,000 we get in donations, we reach a million people,” Metzger said.
