The Military Community Needs Nonprofits. It Doesn't Need Untouchable Ones

The Military Community Nonprofit Industrial Complex

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Day 1: The Military Community Needs Nonprofits. It Doesn't Need Untouchable Ones.

Let's start this series by getting something out of the way.

Military and veteran nonprofits do an enormous amount of good.

Seriously.

Before anybody starts warming up their keyboard to tell me how much their favorite organization has helped veterans, survivors, caregivers, or military families, I believe you.

Many of these organizations do extraordinary work.

They help veterans file claims.

They provide emergency financial assistance.

They help families put food on the table.

They provide scholarships.

They help veterans find jobs.

They support caregivers.

They help survivors navigate the bewildering mess that follows a military death.

They provide peer support.

They advocate before Congress.

They help people navigate government agencies.

They provide housing assistance.

They fund research.

They connect isolated people with communities that understand them.

And sometimes they simply answer the damn phone when someone desperately needs another human being to answer.

That matters.

A lot.

But appreciating the good work of an organization does not require pretending the organization is incapable of doing something wrong.

Welcome to The Military Community Nonprofit Industrial Complex: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

We're going to talk about all three.

Why “Nonprofit Industrial Complex”?

Because the military-connected nonprofit world is enormous.

There are national organizations, local organizations, Veterans Service Organizations, foundations, grassroots groups, volunteer organizations, professional advocacy organizations, research organizations, peer-support networks, membership organizations, and organizations serving extremely specific populations.

Some have enormous budgets and professional staffs.

Others have three volunteers, a Facebook page, a folding table, and someone named Linda who somehow knows everybody in the county.

Both can make a difference.

And both can screw something up.

Size doesn't determine integrity.

Neither does a 501(c)(3) designation.

“Nonprofit” Does Not Mean “Nobody Gets Paid”

Let's clear this one up early because it creates endless confusion.

A nonprofit is not an organization where nobody gets paid.

Employees can be paid.

Executives can be paid.

Contractors can be paid.

Consultants can be paid.

Professional fundraisers can be paid.

And they should be when they're doing professional work.

There is nothing inherently virtuous about paying people poorly.

In fact, organizations that want qualified case managers, policy experts, mental-health professionals, accountants, attorneys, program managers, grant writers, researchers, communications professionals, and executives should expect to compensate them appropriately.

Nonprofit does not mean all volunteer.

The distinction is generally about the organization's purpose and what happens with its net earnings, not whether everybody works for free.

So throughout this series, we're not going to play the lazy game of:

“Someone at a charity earns a good salary, therefore corruption!”

That's not analysis.

We're going to ask better questions.

What is the organization accomplishing?

How large and complicated is it?

What responsibilities does leadership have?

How much money is being managed?

Are compensation and expenses reasonable?

Are resources supporting the mission?

And are the people the organization claims to serve actually benefiting?

Context matters.

Good Organizations Fill Real Gaps

Military-connected nonprofits exist partly because government programs cannot do everything.

Sometimes government programs technically exist but are difficult to navigate.

Sometimes eligibility requirements leave people out.

Sometimes government moves slowly.

Sometimes people need help tonight, not after a federal agency finishes processing Form Whatever-The-Hell-Number-It-Is.

That's where nonprofits can be incredible.

A flexible organization may be able to solve a problem that a government bureaucracy cannot.

A knowledgeable volunteer may recognize a benefit someone didn't know existed.

A peer mentor may understand something no government pamphlet ever could.

A legislative advocate may bring a problem affecting thousands of people to congressional attention.

A local organization may know exactly where to find food, transportation, housing, legal assistance, or employment resources.

That ecosystem has tremendous value.

And sometimes the smallest organizations accomplish remarkable things precisely because they aren't buried under seventeen layers of approval.

But Good Missions Don't Guarantee Good Behavior

Here comes the uncomfortable part.

Almost every military-connected nonprofit has a mission statement that sounds wonderful.

Nobody writes:

“Our mission is to raise a bunch of money, protect our institutional relationships, generate impressive social-media graphics, and occasionally remember veterans exist.”

The mission statement is the easy part.

Behavior is where things get interesting.

An organization can have a wonderful mission and poor leadership.

A wonderful mission and ineffective programs.

A wonderful mission and terrible financial controls.

A wonderful mission and an unhealthy organizational culture.

A wonderful mission and an inability to accept criticism.

A wonderful mission and volunteers who are treated like disposable labor.

A wonderful mission and programs that stopped producing meaningful results years ago.

And an organization can have problems in one area while doing exceptional work in another.

That's why this conversation requires nuance.

Stop Sorting Organizations Into “Good” and “Bad”

People love simple categories.

This organization is wonderful.

That organization is terrible.

Real life is considerably messier.

An organization might have an exceptional benefits-assistance program and a weak advocacy program.

It might provide incredible direct services while struggling with transparency.

It might have strong national leadership and dysfunctional local chapters.

Or the reverse.

It might have excellent employees operating under questionable organizational policies.

It might make a serious mistake, acknowledge it, fix it, and become better because someone raised the issue.

That last one matters.

Making a mistake does not automatically make an organization bad.

What happens after the mistake tells you considerably more.

Does leadership listen?

Does the organization investigate?

Does it correct inaccurate information?

Does it change a harmful practice?

Does it explain what happened?

Or does it attack the person who pointed out the problem?

One of those responses builds trust.

The other tells you exactly why the criticism was necessary.

Accountability Is Not an Attack

This is probably the most important principle for this entire series.

Questioning a nonprofit is not automatically attacking it.

Asking how money is spent is not an attack.

Asking whether a program works is not an attack.

Asking how many people actually received assistance is not an attack.

Asking why an advocacy organization supports legislation is not an attack.

Asking how volunteers are treated is not an attack.

Asking whether a program duplicates services already available elsewhere is not an attack.

Asking who makes policy decisions is not an attack.

Those are reasonable questions.

Organizations are entrusted with donated money, volunteer labor, personal stories, sensitive information, public credibility, and sometimes substantial political influence.

Questions come with the territory.

Donors Should Ask Questions Too

If you donate $10 to an organization, you have every right to wonder what happens to it.

That doesn't mean demanding that your particular ten-dollar bill personally purchase ten dollars worth of groceries for a veteran.

Organizations have overhead.

They need insurance.

Technology.

Accounting.

Staff.

Compliance.

Office space.

Training.

Fundraising.

Data systems.

Background checks.

Professional services.

And about four hundred other boring things nobody puts in the fundraising video.

Overhead is not automatically waste.

In fact, refusing to invest in infrastructure can create badly managed organizations.

But donors should still ask whether the overall spending makes sense.

Is the organization financially transparent?

Does spending align with the mission?

Are programs producing results?

Does the organization explain what donations accomplish?

Those are healthy questions.

Volunteers Should Be Allowed to Ask Questions Too

Military nonprofits often rely heavily on volunteers.

And volunteers can be extraordinary.

They bring professional expertise, community connections, lived experience, institutional knowledge, and thousands upon thousands of hours of labor.

Sometimes volunteers know the population an organization serves better than anyone else in the building.

They should not be treated as free furniture.

Good organizations train volunteers.

Support them.

Listen to them.

Respect their time.

Set reasonable expectations.

Give them meaningful roles.

Recognize their contributions.

And allow them to raise concerns without being branded “difficult.”

Volunteers also have responsibilities.

Show up when you say you will.

Follow appropriate policies.

Respect confidentiality.

Don't turn the organization's mission into your personal kingdom.

And remember that volunteering does not make you the executive director.

It goes both ways.

We'll talk much more about that later this week.

Employees Aren't the Enemy Either

Another easy mistake is assuming paid staff and volunteers exist on opposite sides.

They shouldn't.

Professional staff can provide consistency, expertise, accountability, and institutional knowledge that volunteer-only organizations may struggle to maintain.

Most nonprofit employees aren't lounging around in swimming pools filled with donated money.

They're doing jobs.

Often complicated ones.

Sometimes while dealing with limited budgets, impossible caseloads, grant restrictions, emotionally difficult work, demanding boards, frustrated clients, and volunteers who occasionally believe “I have an idea” means “everyone should completely reorganize the program by Friday.”

Balance.

We're going to need a lot of it this week.

Criticism Should Be Fair

Accountability works both ways.

If we're going to criticize nonprofits, the criticism should be accurate.

Don't accuse an organization of wasting money because you don't understand how nonprofit accounting works.

Don't call something fraud simply because you dislike it.

Don't assume a large executive salary is unreasonable without understanding the organization's size and complexity.

Don't treat administrative expenses as automatically illegitimate.

Don't assume every unsuccessful program was created in bad faith.

And don't turn disagreements with individual employees or volunteers into sweeping accusations against an entire organization.

Criticism without evidence isn't accountability.

It's gossip wearing an advocacy hat.

We can do better.

Look at Patterns, Not Perfection

No organization will get everything right.

The better standard is looking for patterns.

Does the organization generally operate transparently?

Does it correct mistakes?

Does it measure results?

Does it treat people respectfully?

Does it collaborate?

Does it protect confidential information?

Does it use resources responsibly?

Does leadership tolerate disagreement?

Does the organization stay focused on the people it exists to serve?

And when something goes wrong:

What happens next?

That last question may be the most revealing one.

The Community Needs Strong Organizations

The goal of accountability should not be destroying nonprofits.

It should be making them better.

The military community needs strong organizations.

We need organizations capable of walking into congressional offices with credible policy recommendations.

We need organizations that can provide emergency assistance quickly.

We need organizations capable of navigating complicated federal systems.

We need organizations that understand survivors, caregivers, Guard and Reserve families, veterans, military spouses, and active-duty families.

We need professional expertise.

We need grassroots voices.

We need local knowledge.

We need national influence.

We need volunteers.

We need paid professionals.

We need donors willing to fund all of it.

What we don't need is the idea that doing good work places an organization beyond criticism.

Good, Bad, and Ugly Can Exist at the Same Time

That's the point of this series.

An organization can save someone's life on Monday and make a terrible organizational decision on Tuesday.

Both things can be true.

It can have a phenomenal program and a lousy policy.

Both can be true.

It can employ extraordinary people and have dysfunctional leadership.

Both can be true.

It can make mistakes and still deserve support.

Both can be true.

And sometimes an organization really does lose sight of its mission.

We should be able to talk about all of that without immediately dividing into defenders and enemies.

Because accountability should not be reserved for organizations we dislike.

The real test is whether we're willing to apply the same standards to the organizations we love.

Welcome to the Nonprofit Industrial Complex

Over the next week, we're going to talk about mission versus institutional survival.

Money.

Form 990s.

Paid staff.

Volunteer labor.

Organizational territory.

Credit.

Collaboration.

Advocacy.

Activity versus actual results.

And how donors, volunteers, advocates, and members of the military community can evaluate the organizations asking for their money, time, trust, stories, and support.

There will be good.

There will be bad.

There will undoubtedly be some ugly.

And probably a little snark, because apparently that's how we learn things around here.

But the goal isn't to tear down the military nonprofit community.

It's the opposite.

The military community needs nonprofits.

It needs good ones.

Effective ones.

Ethical ones.

Transparent ones.

Organizations willing to learn.

Organizations willing to collaborate.

Organizations willing to admit when they screwed something up and fix it.

Most importantly, it needs organizations that remember why they exist in the first place.

The organization is not the mission.

The people are.

Support the good.

Question the bad.

Fix what can be fixed.

Call out the ugly when necessary.

And never make anything so sacred that nobody is allowed to ask questions about it.