Military Charities?

Venture

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I'm looking for suggestions on good, legit, military-focused charities of any type.

I know of some of the larger ones like Wounded Warrior project but I haven't looked at any in detail.

If anybody has any suggestions for a good organization, post up who and why.
 

nondairycreamer

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Maybe check with the VA? Be sure to ask for their administration costs. A lot of charities have some highly paid sponges. If there are salaries paid it's not a charity.
 

Venture

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Maybe check with the VA? Be sure to ask for their administration costs. A lot of charities have some highly paid sponges. If there are salaries paid it's not a charity.
Exactly what I'm concerned about.
 

Sierra1

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Maybe check with the VA? Be sure to ask for their administration costs. A lot of charities have some highly paid sponges. If there are salaries paid it's not a charity.
I'm with him. A couple of years ago, my kid was looking into charities. He gave to Wounded Warriors, and then did some reading. . . . very little went to the guys that needed it. This was also during their "no firearms" policy. There were a lot of people that were taking the guys out hunting, fishing, and camping. Wounded Warriors stopped letting the guys participate due to the presence of firearms possible adding to their P.T.S.D. Like I said, that was a couple of years ago. It may have changed.

Back when I was in the Navy, we were "encouraged" to donate to charities. They gave us a list that included the percentage amounts of how much money actually went to the charity. I donated to W.W.F. . . . . World Wildlife Foundation. 98% of the donation went to the actual cause.
 

moto.monk

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Ahhhh I use to work for volunteers of america here in LA years ago and what a joke of organization. The amount of fraud and cost cutting was crazy.
 
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OldRider

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I took a look at WW's tax returns and it's not good. They advertise that they spend 17% on fund raising and the other 83% goes to their programs. What they don't tell you is that 90+% of the money in the programs goes for more program expenses. They spend more money on postage than they give to Vets. You send them $19 a month and Vets will do good to see $1 of it.

Lt. Col. Dan Rooney runs the folds of Honor charity. He started out paying himself around $40K a year and now he's up over $500K a year + expenses. He flies around first class, stays in five star hotels and eats the finest food. check it out.
 

moto.monk

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I took a look at WW's tax returns and it's not good. They advertise that they spend 17% on fund raising and the other 83% goes to their programs. What they don't tell you is that 90+% of the money in the programs goes for more program expenses. They spend more money on postage than they give to Vets. You send them $19 a month and Vets will do good to see $1 of it.

Lt. Col. Dan Rooney runs the folds of Honor charity. He started out paying himself around $40K a year and now he's up over $500K a year + expenses. He flies around first class, stays in five star hotels and eats the finest food. check it out.
Sometimes it's less $1 depending on the "non profit".
 

moto.monk

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Actually to add to the controversy I once met a veteran who cared nothing more then being a boss of his own company. Hes now the founder of a equine(horse) veterans non profit organization. He told me how the latest scam is non profits and how I should join if I wanted to make it big. Then he told me about his dream of popping $2k bottles and fucking models all while being married.
 

OldRider

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Everything seems to be a scam anymore. Take girl scout cookies. They sell the cookies for $5 a box. The girl scouts keep pennies on the dollar while the bulk of the money goes back to the promoter. I knew a chick in the late 80's that was making $50-$60 grand a year part time setting up girl scout troops to sell cookies. Now when I see them peddling the cookies, I just give them $5 bucks and tell them I don't want the cookies. FYI, you can buy GS cookies under a different label at Aldis for about a buck a box. Same cookies.
 

Eville Rich

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I think the Girl Scouts cookie sales are a little better than that. I always check charities and it appears that 65 to 75 percent (100 percent of net profit) stays with the local council or the troop making the sale. So a good chunk ends up supporting programs. Fun fact - the first year of Girl Scout cookies sales was done with home made cookies. After that they went to the model of contracting out the baking. A friend of mine used to work for the Girl Scouts and always had a pretty high opinion of the organization.

Regardless, there are a lot of scams. The hear it for law enforcement, military charities, etc. My first question always how much goes to programs or direct support vs fund raising and marketing. I always check what I'm told and if the person doing the fund raising doesn't have a straight answer I'm done. I'm OK with "I don't know" but have no patience for statements that are incorrect or vague.

Eville Rich
 

OldRider

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The key words are "net profit". 100% of nothing is nothing. The promoter comes in and sets everything up and all the GS's have to do is sit outside Wal-Mart and hand out boxes. IMHO with a little more effort from the mom's they could run the whole show by their self and make 2-3 times the money, but that would take a little work and it's easier to just let someone else do it.

The local FOP used to have local well know cops call and ask for donations for whatever cause the were promoting. Now they got lazy and have farmed it all out to tele-marketers who do the work and keep 70% of the money they collect. I just hang up on them.
 

navynuke

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Navy Marine Corp Relief Society, they helped me with a no interest li as n when my pay got messed up and after it got sorted took the payment with zero problems.

Also donated a wheelchair ramp, recovery chair snd wheelchair for my brother after his pelvis/hip got broken while on active duty!

I chose to donate to those that workwith active soldiers.


Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
 

Eville Rich

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The key words are "net profit". 100% of nothing is nothing. The promoter comes in and sets everything up and all the GS's have to do is sit outside Wal-Mart and hand out boxes. IMHO with a little more effort from the mom's they could run the whole show by their self and make 2-3 times the money, but that would take a little work and it's easier to just let someone else do it.

The local FOP used to have local well know cops call and ask for donations for whatever cause the were promoting. Now they got lazy and have farmed it all out to tele-marketers who do the work and keep 70% of the money they collect. I just hang up on them.
The Girl Scouts explain the net profit. It's 65-75% of the cost of the cookies. It's not nothing. Naturally there is a cost to the cookies, etc. which is what needs to get netted out (and whatever else is in the 25-35%). No need to hate on them. And it's not like this is some secret information. Plenty of other charities are far worse.

The only telemarketing efforts I'll donate to are for universities I've attended. I'm also a pain to talk to as I'll only donate if I get something in the mail and will often give the students doing to fund raising a lesson on telephone manners - mostly about introducing yourself first before you ask for me.

Eville Rich
 

OldRider

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The Girl Scouts explain the net profit. It's 65-75% of the cost of the cookies. It's not nothing. Naturally there is a cost to the cookies, etc. which is what needs to get netted out (and whatever else is in the 25-35%). No need to hate on them. And it's not like this is some secret information. Plenty of other charities are far worse.

The only telemarketing efforts I'll donate to are for universities I've attended. I'm also a pain to talk to as I'll only donate if I get something in the mail and will often give the students doing to fund raising a lesson on telephone manners - mostly about introducing yourself first before you ask for me.

Eville Rich
Back up Rich, I'm not hating on anyone. I'm all for the Girl Scouts. Yes they make some money selling cookies, but I think they get the short end of the stick and the cookie promoter gets the big piece of the pie. Should be the other way around.
 

Venture

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My wife has been doing the cookie sales for her troop for years. I'd have to ask her for specifics, but the local troop doesn't get much. The bulk of the profits goes to local or national council. They went rogue and have done a few spaghetti dinners with a local Cafe and make quite a bit more with a ton less effort. They still do the cookie sale of course but after seeing multiple times the efforts they put into it I'm personally not impressed with what they earn.
 

Checkswrecks

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My wife has been doing the cookie sales for her troop for years. I'd have to ask her for specifics, but the local troop doesn't get much. The bulk of the profits goes to local or national council. They went rogue and have done a few spaghetti dinners with a local Cafe and make quite a bit more with a ton less effort. They still do the cookie sale of course but after seeing multiple times the efforts they put into it I'm personally not impressed with what they earn.
I used to be Committee Chair for our Boy Scout troop years ago and like you, found that a lot of the popcorn and other national fundraising didn't come back to us. Our answer was the annual mulch and Christmas tree sales, which brought in enough to fund the troop for an entire year. Don't know how big the troop is now but we were about 75 families and the entire community looks forward to this sale every spring. We'd roughly price in line with the big box stores and deliver to people's houses. We'd rent forklifts to unload truck loads of pallets which started to arrive at 11pm the night before, break those down, and deliver 11,000 bags of mulch in a single weekend.

Just a portion of the mulch:

Here's partway through delivery day. Each row was 4 deep at the beginning!

We also rented a few Ryder trucks:
 
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