Which charities supporting veterans have the highest program expense ratios?
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Executive summary
A short list of veteran-focused charities report exceptionally high program expense ratios — Veteran Tickets Foundation (99.3%), several smaller groups over 90%, and larger, well-known organizations like Gary Sinise Foundation and Homes For Our Troops reporting roughly 84–89% — but these headline numbers mask differing accounting rules, reporting years, and watchdog adjustments that materially affect comparability (Charities for Veterans; Impactful Ninja; Gary Sinise Foundation; CharityWatch) [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. Who tops the list: near‑100% program ratios
The most striking figure in the reporting comes from Charities for Veterans, which calculates that Veteran Tickets Foundation spent 99.3% of its $293 million budget on programs and 0.7% on overhead based on its 2024 tax return, putting it at the very top of program‑expense ratios cited by that evaluator [1].
2. Several midsize nonprofits report >90% program spending
Charities for Veterans also highlights other organizations with program ratios above 90%: Black Veterans for Social Justice at 90.5% and United Veterans Beacon House Inc. at 92.4%, calculated from those groups’ most recent tax returns in the dataset referenced [1].
3. Widely known veterans charities and their reported program shares
Longstanding public charities show strong program ratios in multiple sources: the Gary Sinise Foundation reports applying 89% of every dollar to its mission in FY2025 on its financials page, while Homes For Our Troops is reported by CharityWatch and other aggregators at roughly an 84–90% program expense level depending on the source and year cited [3] [2] [4].
4. Common claims and corroboration from watchdogs and aggregators
Impactful Ninja, Donorbox, and other aggregator lists repeatedly state that top veterans charities such as Fisher House Foundation, Homes For Our Troops, and Gary Sinise Foundation use at least 80% of funds on programs, and CharityWatch has given A grades to some of these groups after its own analyses — evidence that multiple independent summaries reach similar conclusions about high program spending among many veterans charities [2] [5] [6].
5. Why headline program ratios can mislead — accounting and joint‑cost issues
Watchdog methodology matters: CharityWatch analysts adjust reported program expenses when fundraising or solicitation costs are recorded as program expenses (so-called joint costs), and explicitly note that veterans groups like Veterans of Foreign Wars have had their ratings adjusted for joint costs — meaning a charity’s published “program percentage” can fall after a watchdog’s reclassification [7].
6. Limitations in the available reporting and what remains unknown
The sources provided span different years, use different data (tax returns, annual reports, or self‑reported financials), and sometimes summarize one another; they do not produce a single, audited, side‑by‑side ranking covering all veterans charities. Where a claim is not directly documented in the supplied reporting, that gap is acknowledged rather than asserted as fact [2] [1] [3].
7. Practical guidance implied by the numbers
Program expense ratio is a useful indicator of mission focus and efficiency, but given divergent accounting practices, donors should read the watchdog notes (e.g., CharityWatch adjustments) and the underlying tax filings before drawing firm conclusions; the organizations repeatedly cited for highest program shares in the supplied reporting are Veteran Tickets Foundation (~99.3%), United Veterans Beacon House (~92.4%), Black Veterans for Social Justice (~90.5%), Gary Sinise Foundation (~89% per FY2025 filings), and Homes For Our Troops (~84% per CharityWatch/aggregators) [1] [3] [4] [2].