Some Grant Makers Get Savvier About Aid to War Veterans

Veterans had never been a specific focus for Ahmanson Foundation grants before last year.

But when William Ahmanson, president of the fund and grand-nephew of the philanthropy’s founder, began to notice more grant requests from veterans groups two years ago, he knew the $1.1-billion private foundation needed to step up.

Last year Mr. Ahmanson quickly turned to two dozen colleges, most already part of the foundation’s existing scholarship program, and awarded them $1.25-million in grants to start programs that would encourage enrollment by veterans and provide services, including tuition assistance, to help ensure they made it to graduation. In February the foundation awarded a second round of grants totaling $1.3-million.

The Ahmanson Veteran Scholarship Initiative has served 135 students at 24 colleges, which have appointed staff members to focus on veterans’ needs or started centers to provide former soldiers with tutoring and other support to help them overcome obstacles that other students might not face.

Mr. Ahmanson says the foundation moved quickly with its grants because his research indicated that “everyone wants to do something for veterans, but all they were doing were attending seminars about what to do.”

His approach demonstrates what experts say is a growing savviness among philanthropies in helping soldiers make the transition from military to civilian life. Efforts include programs that provide assistance for veterans struggling to recover from physical injuries, mental-health problems, and financial hardships.

But as the number of veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq has grown, so have the challenges for grant makers trying to determine where their help is most needed. Some 60,000 groups have “veterans” in their name, the Philanthropy Roundtable estimates in a new report.

“Within this blizzard of choices there are some wonderful and highly productive organizations,” says the report, “Serving Those Who Served: A Wise Giver’s Guide to Assisting Veterans and Military Families.” But, it cautions, “There are also lots of feckless and even counterproductive undertakings.”

Vague Impact

Anne Marie Dougherty, executive director of the Bob Woodruff Foundation, says the confusion that abounds about how best to help veterans is one reason her organization focuses on helping other donors and grant makers navigate a maze of organizations.

“Donors and companies are coming to us and saying they want to help vets, but they’re not sure what are the good programs and how can they avoid making mistakes,” says Ms. Dougherty, whose organization was started by Mr. Woodruff, an ABC news reporter who was injured in 2006 by a roadside bomb while covering the war in Iraq.

She says what is frustrating for donors is that very few groups have conducted research that demonstrates “what has and hasn’t worked.”

The Bob Woodruff Foundation has also financed the work of Syracuse University’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families, started in 2011 to help support more research into what programs for veterans actually work.

“We can tell you today in a way we couldn’t have told you in the past through research that education and employment are two issue areas impacting vets and their families that have widespread and enduring implications for their post-service life,” says Mike Haynie, executive director of the institute at Syracuse.

Being able to obtain such reliable information is a recent development.

“Early in the 2000s, the sad reality was that if you hung out a shingle and said you were starting a nonprofit to serve veterans, it was relatively easy to go out and raise funds to do that,” he says. “That environment has changed dramatically especially over the last two to four years. The grant-making community is getting much more sophisticated.”

In 2013 the Philanthropy Roundtable began producing research of its own on effective veterans programs. The group highlights the type of student veterans that Mr. Ahmanson wants to help.

“A typical veteran on campus today is 5-10 years older than the common teenage college student. He or she often has a family to support,” the organization states in its report.

“So making the social adjustment to college, getting appropriate mentoring from campus authorities, financing the interstitial periods between semesters, and staying on task until a degree is finished are the toughest hurdles.”

Thomas Meyer, who leads the Philanthropy Roundtable’s veterans-services research, says more foundations could learn from the Ahmanson fund and assist veterans through programs they already support, in job training, college aid, and other areas that offer incentives to talented soldiers returning from war.

“That’s where the highest leverage points are in philanthropy,” Mr. Meyer says.

Some people in philanthropy who want to assist veterans are concerned that as the wars disappear from news reports, veterans issues will no longer remain a priority.

“Veteran philanthropy needs to become a permanent fixture,” says Mr. Meyers.