What's a good charity to benefit service personnel for startup business to work with?

Here's a little off topic question for the all knowing WERA Beeb:
Can anyone suggest a decent charity for an e-commerce motorcycle parts start-up to get in cahoots with?

We are trying to do a little something for military personnel that has a direct payout for every purchase going to a charity that actually has an impact for them, but are having some trouble making it happen. I suppose we could just donate anonymously, but we want to have their logo on the site. We figure that most riders are a patriotic bunch and if some of the money they spend on the widget they buy through the site goes to truly help someone serving our nation or a veteran, they win, we win, and Joe Public gets his widget and a bit of satisfaction knowing about it.

We spoke to the Wounded Warrior Project, but they said they don't do a percentage-of-proceeds kind of thing anymore so they're not an option.

We then spoke to the local USO office, and they were interested, but wanted 5% of every sale, nothing less. We simply can't afford that, since our pricing structure is super tight. We even lose money on some transactions after we pay the freight, but when cost averaged, it's okay. They went on to say that they may change their minds in 6 months and might call us back. We met with their representative several times and he never mentioned a minimum percentage until today. Back to square one

So we're thinking about a few others and we even spoke to a Marine Veteran neighbor about what charities he knew of as having the biggest impact. Without hesitation, he said the American Red Cross is the most helpful charity and cited examples he was witness to first hand. So we're looking into that option now.

Any other suggestions? We're talking about 1% of every sale, btw.

 

Not sure exactly what you are looking for, but there are some out there to choose from. Here is what I know of, pretty sure there are more out there. A good place to research is the local VA office or possibly even the VFW.

http://www.toysfortots.org/
http://www.semperfifund.org/
http://www.rebuildhope.org/
http://www.soldiersangels.org/
http://www.thanksusa.org/main/index.html
http://www.taps.org/
http://www.adoptaplatoon.org/
http://www.anysoldier.com/index.cfm
http://www.bluestarmothers.org/
http://operationtroopaid.org/
http://www.militaryfamily.org/
http://www.fisherhouse.org/
http://www.giveanhour.org/
http://homefrontamerica.org/

 

I'd recommend the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. It provides college scholarships to children of fallen operators, and I don't think it's as big as WWP so it may be easier to work with.

 

IAVA?

 

Awesome! thanks guys