Nonprofit organizations serving the military and veterans community represent a distinct segment of the philanthropic landscape, often operating with limited financial resources relative to the broader sector. Despite steady growth in charitable support over the past decade, these organizations consistently receive less than 1% of total U.S. philanthropy. The Military & Veterans Community Index (MVCI) provides the most comprehensive, data-driven directory of these organizations across the United States.
Measuring giving to military members, veterans, and their families and caregivers
Drawing on a full decade of financial data, this inaugural report reveals critical insights about the organizations supporting military and veterans’ communities—from their scale and scope to the philanthropic dollars flowing to them from individual donors, foundations, and corporations. While inflation-adjusted charitable contributions grew from $2.6 billion in 2013 to $3.7 billion in 2023, these organizations have maintained a consistent yet modest footprint, representing just 0.6%-0.7% of all charitable giving throughout this period.
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Giving to MVCI organizations has gradually risen over a decade to $3.7 billion in 2023
Over the past decade, charitable giving to organizations serving military and veterans’ communities has grown—gradually but steadily. In 2013, giving totaled an inflation-adjusted $2.6 billion. By 2023, that number had climbed to $3.7 billion, after peaking at $4.0 billion in 2022.
The following graph shows how philanthropic support for organizations serving military and veterans’ communities has changed over the past decade.
MVCI giving is closely aligned with overall philanthropic giving, consistently representing 0.6-0.7% of total U.S. charitable giving.
The following graph highlights how changes in MVCI giving closely map overall giving.
Human service organizations top among categorized giving
In 2023, the largest share of giving—nearly $450 million—went to human service organizations, which provide essentials like family support and financial assistance to the military and veterans community. Mental health ($398 million), survivor care and memorializing ($397 million), and housing organizations ($353 million), also drew significant support. The largest single category, general veterans’ services, accounted for roughly $815 million.
The following graph demonstrates levels of giving to different subsectors, ensuring the extraneous numbers next to the categories are removed.
The Military & Veterans Community Index was developed by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. The school is dedicated to improving philanthropy and the world by training and empowering students and professionals to be innovators and leaders who create lasting and positive change.
The Military & Veterans Community Index was developed with funding from Google.org Charitable Giving Fund. The findings and conclusions contained within are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect official positions or policies of any funders.
The Military & Veterans Community Index includes 501(c)(3), 501 (c)(19), and 501(c)23 public charities primarily dedicated to serving military and veterans’ communities that were active from 2013 to 2023—the most recent year for which more than 99% of finalized IRS data on charitable organizations were available as of September 2025. The analyses in this report illustrate key characteristics of these organizations, including the amount of total philanthropic support they receive from individuals, foundations, and corporations. To offer context, the findings compare MVCI organizations with non-MVCI organizations and with traditional nonprofit subsectors.
Several data sources form the basis of the MVCI, the most important of which are e-file Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data available on Amazon Web Services and irs.gov that provide details for 450,881 501(c)(3) public charities filing IRS Forms 990 and 990-EZ electronically for circa fiscal year 2023. These data were supplemented with 625 digitized Form 990 and 990-EZ returns from IRS Return Transaction Files (RTF). For organizations not filing an IRS Form 990 or Form 990-EZ, a combination of 661,956 charitable organizations filing Form 990-N and 499,972 "non-filing" registered charitable organizations were used to gather further information on typically smaller and religious organizations, for a total population of 1,613,434 registered 501(c)(3), (19), and (23) domestic charitable organizations for fiscal year 2023. Non-filing organizations are defined as registered tax-exempt organizations that did not file any type of Form 990 between the two years leading up to 2023 through one year after, most of which are religion-related charitable organizations exempt from annual 990 filing requirements. The final set of MVCI inclusion and exclusion rules was applied to the full population of 2,040,184 registered 501(c)(3), (19), and (23) domestic charitable organizations that were found in IRS Business Master Files (BMF) at any time between January 2010 and September 2025.
The Military & Veterans Community Index includes data from nonprofits active from 2012 to 2023. Analyses in the 2025 Military & Veterans Community Index report are based on this decade-long period.
2023 is the most recent year for which more than 99% of finalized IRS data on charitable organizations were available as of September 2025. Previous or subsequent fiscal year information was used when 2023 data was unavailable.
This report addresses organizations serving military members and veterans, as well as their families and caregivers. Military members and veterans face elevated risks compared to the general population, including higher rates of homelessness, suicide, physical disability, and mental illness—challenges that underscore the critical importance of dedicated philanthropic support. These groups align closely with classifications used in government data, which were incorporated at various stages of the MVCI analysis.
Informed by a review of the relevant literature and published organization listings, the researchers developed initial sets of key words, stop words, and other criteria to establish logical “rules” to identify potential organizations for the MVCI. It’s important to note that researchers also included organizations serving these populations that do not mention serving these specific populations in their name or mission statements.
Following this process, the final set of rules was applied to the full population of 2,040,184 registered charitable organizations found in IRS Business Master Files (BMF) between 2010 and 2024, resulting in 57,002 MVCI organizations, 39,375 of which were registered during circa 2023 per BMF. In total, the researchers hand-checked over 1,500 of the potential MVCI organizations identified based on available information, with a special focus on the largest organizations by finances, verifying over 90% of organizations by dollar.
Throughout this process, the researchers received advice and counsel from a group of experts on a project-specific Advisory Council. Those experts are listed in the full research report.
The final set of MVCI rules and their sequencing are available upon request.
This study has a limited scope beyond 501(c)(3, 501 (c)(19), and 501(c)23 nonprofits, and therefore does not provide a full picture of the numerous ways individuals and organizations support military and veterans communities, including direct support to businesses and individuals, political advocacy, informal mutual aid networks, volunteering, and religious giving—which are not reflected in the data.
Data and classification challenges mean that there are certain caveats to this research. Organizations were manually reviewed for inclusion in the Index, but their categorical classification was not systematically verified—which may introduce minor consistencies in how some organizations are categorized.
The variety of identities held by those in the military and veterans community, such as race/ethnicity, gender, LGBTQ+ identity, and disability also shape giving patterns. However, current nonprofit datasets do not yet allow for detailed breakdowns of funding to organizations serving specific intersectional groups. Work is underway to improve this.
The following citation should accompany any use of the Military & Veterans Community Index data: Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and DataLake Nonprofit Research. (2025). Military & Veterans Community Index [Data file].
