Terence Fox

Concerns have developed regarding a San Diego non-profit organization known as the American Combat Veterans of War or ACVOW. The group has got an office at the Va medical center in La Jolla, CA and is operated almost entirely by volunteers. They claim to help vets obtain their benefits and boast about their programs to help warriors with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The problem? No accountability. The group has existed for over 10 years, yet functions under the radar. A check on Charity Navigator and the Better Business Bureau’s Charity Index make virtually no mention of ACVOW. Nor does ACVOW possess meaningful record of the success they’ve gotten aiding veterans and active duty personnel. Furthermore, ACVOW just lost a small claims court conflict for refusing to pay one of its contractors. A Utah News post from June of last year suggests that one of ACVOW’s representatives used contributions from the group to bail out an anti-immigration activist from jail, an evident abuse of the terms for most 501(c)(3) non-profit establishments. This post is not implying that that ACVOW is undertaking in unlawful activity. There are certainly serious ethical challenges and potential donors need to be careful whenever contributing to associations with no fiscal accountability.