Donations to the IDF: A Guide by Guy Farache

By Guy Farache — CEO, Friends of Duvdevan · Major (Res.), IDF · Former Duvdevan Company Commander

After October 7, donations to the IDF surged. So did confusion about where to send the money, what's tax-deductible, and which organizations actually move dollars to soldiers. This is the honest field guide.

My phone has not stopped since October 7. American donors, European family offices, Israeli expatriates, first-time givers, fifty-year veterans of Jewish philanthropy — all asking variations of the same question. How do I donate to the IDF? Where does the money actually go? Who do I trust?

I run Friends of Duvdevan, the U.S. 501(c)(3) that funds the welfare and rehabilitation of one of the IDF's most decorated counter-terror units. I served in the unit as a company commander and hold the rank of Major in the reserves. I have spent the last decade inside the IDF-philanthropy ecosystem and the last twenty months at the center of its post-October 7 expansion. This is what donors need to know.

Can You Actually Donate Directly to the IDF?

No. This is the first thing most donors get wrong.

The Israel Defense Forces is a state military, funded by the Israeli government. It does not accept civilian donations. Anyone who tells you their gift goes "directly to the IDF" is either using imprecise language or describing something else entirely.

What you can do — and what the entire ecosystem of IDF-related philanthropy is built around — is donate to organizations that support IDF soldiers and their families in ways the military budget does not, cannot, or will not cover. That is a meaningful distinction, and it shapes everything about how to give intelligently.

The Five Categories of IDF-Support Giving

Every legitimate IDF-related charity falls into one of five buckets. Understand the buckets and you understand the landscape:

Broad soldier-welfare organizations — the largest, most institutional players, supporting all IDF soldiers across all units, primarily through welfare grants, recreation, R&R, and emergency aid.
Official Israeli welfare partners — organizations formally partnered with the Israeli Ministry of Defense to channel donor funds into the military welfare system.
Unit-specific foundations — independent nonprofits that support a single unit (Duvdevan, Sayeret Matkal, Shayetet 13, Givati, Paratroopers, and others), funding welfare, family support, and rehabilitation specific to that unit's mission and population.
Wounded-veteran and PTSD-focused organizations — foundations dedicated to physical and mental rehabilitation of wounded soldiers and combat-trauma veterans.
Bereaved-family organizations — long-term support for the families of fallen soldiers and victims of terror, often blending IDF-bereavement with civilian-victim populations.

Most major donors give across multiple categories. There is no "best" category — each addresses a real gap. The right portfolio depends on what the donor cares about and what they're trying to fund.

The Major Broad-Spectrum Organizations

Two organizations sit at the top of the broad-spectrum tier:

FIDF (Friends of the Israel Defense Forces)

FIDF is the largest U.S. 501(c)(3) supporting IDF soldiers. National chapter network, institutional fundraising at scale, board of major American Jewish philanthropic figures. Funds welfare programs, scholarships for combat veterans, IMPACT (the post-service academic program), R&R, and post-October 7 emergency campaigns.

Strengths: scale, brand recognition, structural relationship with the IDF welfare directorate. Best fit for donors who want institutional-grade reporting, large-event recognition, and broad impact across the entire military.

LIBI USA (Association for the Wellbeing of Israel's Soldiers)

LIBI is the official welfare fund of the IDF, established under Israeli law and partnered formally with the Ministry of Defense. LIBI USA is the American 501(c)(3) arm. Funds flow into the IDF's official welfare system.

Strengths: closest organizational alignment to the IDF itself. Best fit for donors who want the most direct institutional path into the military's own welfare apparatus.

Both are real, both move significant money, both have credible track records. Both also have institutional overhead and broad allocation models — meaning a donor's dollar gets spread widely across the entire force rather than concentrated.

Unit-Specific Foundations — Where Friends of Duvdevan Fits

For donors who want concentration and direct visibility into where their money goes, unit-specific foundations are the most direct route. Each major IDF combat unit has — or is developing — an independent U.S. 501(c)(3) that supports it. The model exists because broad-spectrum organizations, by definition, cannot fund the highly specific needs of a single unit's population.

Friends of Duvdevan is the unit-specific foundation for Duvdevan, the IDF counter-terror unit specializing in undercover operations against active terror cells inside Palestinian population centers. We fund welfare and rehabilitation for current and former unit soldiers and their families. Donations are U.S. tax-deductible.

The case for unit-specific giving is straightforward:

Concentration. A dollar to a unit foundation goes to one population — that unit's soldiers and families — instead of being spread across hundreds of thousands of soldiers across the entire IDF.
Specificity. Unit foundations fund what the unit's specific mission produces. Duvdevan produces a particular PTSD profile because of its undercover mission cycle. Combat-medic units produce a different profile. Naval commandos a third. Generic programs underserve all three.
Direct access. Unit foundations are small enough that major donors talk to the people running them, get briefings from active or former unit personnel, and see programmatic outcomes in real terms.

Other reputable unit foundations exist for several elite IDF formations. Diligence each one the same way you would any nonprofit (see the vetting framework below). Some are mature, well-governed, and audited. Others are newer and earlier in their institutional build-out.

Wounded-Veteran and PTSD-Focused Organizations

After October 7, the wounded-veteran and combat-trauma population in Israel expanded dramatically. Several organizations specialize in this work:

Belev Echad — Chabad-founded organization supporting wounded IDF veterans through retreats, therapy, and direct welfare. Strong public profile and major-donor base.
Heroes to Heroes Foundation — U.S.-based, brings combat veterans (Israeli and American) to Israel for trauma-recovery programs.
IDF Widows and Orphans Organization — long-term support for bereaved military families.
Beit Halochem (Zahal Disabled Veterans Organization) — Israel's primary rehabilitation network for disabled IDF veterans, with American Friends chapters.

Friends of Duvdevan overlaps with this category through our Resilience Program, the foundation's flagship mental-health and rehabilitation initiative. We focus exclusively on Duvdevan's population, but the work — clinical care, peer support, family therapy, long-tail rehabilitation — sits squarely inside the wounded-veteran philanthropic landscape.

How to Vet an IDF-Support Charity

Every donor — first-timer or veteran — should run the same diligence on any IDF-related organization. Six questions:

Is it a registered 501(c)(3)? If you're a U.S. donor seeking a tax deduction, this is non-negotiable. Verify on the IRS exempt-organization database. Get the EIN.
Are the financials public? Form 990 should be available — either on the organization's website or through GuideStar / Candid. Read it. Look at the ratio of program expenses to total expenses. Look at executive compensation. Look at fundraising costs.
Who runs it and what's their connection? Charities founded and run by former unit members, military families, or credentialed Israeli welfare professionals are categorically different from charities run by outside fundraisers with no operational connection to the IDF.
Where does the money actually go? Demand specificity. "Soldier welfare" is a category, not an answer. Ask what programs the funds support, who designs them, who delivers them, and what the outcomes look like.
Is there a credible Israeli partner? U.S. 501(c)(3) charities supporting IDF soldiers must work through Israeli partner entities — either the IDF welfare directorate, a registered Israeli amuta (nonprofit), or a unit's official welfare apparatus. Ask who the Israeli partner is.
Can you talk to someone real? For any gift above the minor-donor level, the organization should be able to put you on a call with leadership and answer specific questions about programs and impact. If they can't, that tells you something.

This is the same diligence framework that should apply to any nonprofit. The IDF-support category attracts emotional giving — particularly after major events — and emotional giving without diligence is how donors end up funding organizations that don't deliver.

U.S. Tax Treatment of Donations to the IDF

Donations to the IDF itself — meaning to the State of Israel's military — are not tax-deductible in the United States. Foreign governments are not qualified U.S. charitable recipients.

Donations to U.S.-registered 501(c)(3) Friends-of organizations that support the IDF are tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowed under U.S. tax law. This includes FIDF, LIBI USA, Belev Echad, Friends of Duvdevan, and the other organizations referenced above.

Several giving vehicles work especially well in this category:

Donor-advised funds (DAFs) — most IDF-support 501(c)(3)s are eligible DAF recipients. Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard, and Jewish Federation DAFs all process these recommendations routinely.
Appreciated securities — donating long-term appreciated stock avoids capital gains tax and generates a full fair-market-value deduction. Most IDF-support 501(c)(3)s accept stock gifts directly through standard brokerage transfer.
IRA qualified charitable distributions (QCDs) — donors over 70½ can direct up to $105,000 per year (2025 limit) from an IRA to a qualified charity, satisfying RMD requirements without recognizing the distribution as taxable income.
Estate and legacy giving — IDF-support organizations qualify as bequest recipients and reduce the donor's taxable estate.

International donors should consult their local tax counsel. Several IDF-support 501(c)(3)s maintain partner organizations in Canada, the UK, Australia, and continental Europe that provide local tax efficiency.

Direct-to-Unit vs Broad-Spectrum: How to Decide

This is the question I get most often from major donors. The honest answer is both — most experienced donors maintain a portfolio across categories. But for donors making a single significant gift, the framework is:

Choose broad-spectrum (FIDF, LIBI) if...

You want the largest possible institutional platform and recognition.
You don't have a specific affinity to any particular unit or military function.
You prefer institutional reporting at scale over direct personal engagement.
You're giving emergency-response funds during an active campaign and want speed of deployment.

Choose unit-specific (Friends of Duvdevan and others) if...

You want concentration — a smaller universe of beneficiaries you can actually understand.
You have a personal connection (family member who served, ideological affinity to a particular mission).
You want direct contact with leadership and visibility into specific programs.
You're focused on a particular function — counter-terror, naval, paratrooper, special operations, intelligence — and want to fund the specialized welfare and rehabilitation that function requires.

Choose wounded-veteran / PTSD-focused if...

Your priority is long-term rehabilitation rather than active-duty welfare.
You want to fund the multi-year arc of recovery rather than the moment of crisis.
You have personal or professional engagement with mental-health care and want the giving to align.

Why I Built Friends of Duvdevan

Duvdevan is the highest producer of PTSD cases in the IDF. That is not a failure of selection or training. It is a function of what the mission demands.

A Duvdevan soldier can be sitting at his kitchen table on a Friday afternoon and inside a hostile city by Friday night, undercover, looking like a civilian, acting like a civilian, with live operational risk on every side. Then he comes home. Then he does it again. The nervous system was not built to switch states that fast, that often, for years.

When I served in the unit, the support structure for soldiers who came home carrying this was thin. The IDF welfare apparatus is built for the general population of soldiers; it does not specialize in the specific psychiatric and rehabilitation profile that this unit produces. The gap was visible. Friends of Duvdevan was built to fill it.

After October 7, that gap multiplied. Duvdevan teams were among the first to engage in Kfar Aza and other Gaza-envelope communities. The unit took losses. The wounded came home. The families needed help. The cost of caring for them — medical, psychological, financial — went up sharply and has stayed up. That is the work the foundation funds today.

What the Foundation Does

Friends of Duvdevan is the U.S.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit that supports the welfare and rehabilitation of Duvdevan soldiers and their families. We work directly with the unit's welfare officers and with the clinicians who run our programs — not through layers of intermediaries.

Our work breaks into two streams:

The Resilience Program — our flagship mental-health and rehabilitation initiative, addressing what is by every internal IDF measure the highest rate of PTSD in the military.
Soldier and family welfare — direct support for active-duty soldiers, wounded soldiers, bereaved families, and the broader Duvdevan community. Emergency financial aid in crisis. Life-event support. Recognition of service. The everyday infrastructure of caring for a unit that cannot care for itself publicly.

The Resilience Program in Practice

Resilience funding goes to four things:

Clinical treatment — trauma-trained therapists, psychiatric care, and the medications and modalities that combat-PTSD treatment actually requires.
Structured peer support — Duvdevan veterans helping current and recently discharged soldiers, organized around the specific operational realities of this unit, not generic veteran-support templates.
Family therapy — because PTSD doesn't live only inside the soldier. Spouses, children, and parents carry the load. Programs that treat the soldier without treating the family rarely hold.
Long-tail rehabilitation — recognition that recovery is years, not months. We fund care that stays in place for as long as the soldier and the family need it.

How to Donate to Friends of Duvdevan

There are four ways to give:

Online — visit duvdevanus.org and give by credit card or ACH. The site supports one-time and recurring gifts.
Check — payable to Friends of Duvdevan, mailed to the address listed at duvdevanus.org.
Stock, DAF, or planned giving — for donor-advised fund recommendations, appreciated securities, IRA qualified charitable distributions, and legacy giving, contact us at friends@duvdevanus.org.
Major gifts and naming opportunities — for six-figure-plus commitments, including named program support inside the Resilience Program, I take those calls personally.

Friends of Duvdevan is a registered U.S. 501(c)(3). Donations are tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowed by U.S. tax law. Our EIN and Form 990 are available on the website.

Frequently Asked Questions About Donations to the IDF

Can I donate directly to the IDF?

No. The IDF is a state military and does not accept civilian donations. What you can do is donate to a U.S. 501(c)(3) organization that supports IDF soldiers and their families — including FIDF, LIBI USA, unit-specific foundations like Friends of Duvdevan, and wounded-veteran organizations like Belev Echad. These gifts are tax-deductible in the United States.

Are donations to the IDF tax-deductible in the United States?

Donations to the IDF itself are not tax-deductible. Donations to U.S.-registered 501(c)(3) charities that support IDF soldiers are tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowed by law. Always verify 501(c)(3) status before giving.

What is the best charity to donate to for IDF soldiers?

There is no single "best" — it depends on what you want to fund. For broad institutional reach, FIDF and LIBI USA. For concentration on a specific unit, the unit-specific foundations (Friends of Duvdevan supports the Duvdevan counter-terror unit). For wounded-veteran and PTSD rehabilitation, Belev Echad, Heroes to Heroes, Beit Halochem, and the Friends of Duvdevan Resilience Program. Most experienced donors give across multiple categories.

How do I donate to the IDF from the United States?

Give to a U.S.-registered 501(c)(3) organization that supports the IDF. You can give online by credit card or ACH, by check, by donor-advised fund recommendation, by appreciated stock transfer, by IRA qualified charitable distribution, or through estate and legacy vehicles. All major IDF-support 501(c)(3)s accept these methods.

What is the Duvdevan Unit?

Duvdevan is one of the IDF's most decorated counter-terror formations, specializing in undercover operations against active terror cells inside Palestinian population centers. The unit's mission requires soldiers to move between civilian normalcy and high-risk operations on rapid cycles, which contributes to its uniquely high PTSD rate within the IDF.

What's the difference between FIDF, LIBI USA, and unit-specific foundations like Friends of Duvdevan?

FIDF and LIBI USA are broad-spectrum: they support the entire IDF across all units. FIDF is the largest U.S. friends-of organization; LIBI USA channels funds into the official IDF welfare apparatus. Unit-specific foundations like Friends of Duvdevan support a single unit's population — its active-duty soldiers, wounded veterans, and bereaved families. The categories complement each other and most experienced donors give to both broad and unit-specific organizations.

Is Friends of Duvdevan an official IDF organization?

No. Friends of Duvdevan is an independent U.S. 501(c)(3) that supports the welfare and rehabilitation of Duvdevan soldiers and their families. We coordinate closely with the unit's welfare officers but we are not part of the IDF and are not funded by the State of Israel.

What percentage of donations reaches the soldiers and families?

Friends of Duvdevan runs lean. The substantial majority of every dollar goes to the Resilience Program or to direct soldier and family welfare. Our Form 990 and annual reporting are public. For any nonprofit, ask for and review the Form 990 — the ratio of program expenses to total expenses is the cleanest single indicator of operational efficiency.

Can I donate to the IDF from outside the United States?

Yes. Many U.S. IDF-support 501(c)(3)s accept international card payments. For local tax efficiency, partner organizations exist in Canada, the UK, Australia, and continental Europe. For Friends of Duvdevan specifically, international donors can give online at duvdevanus.org or contact friends@duvdevanus.org about local partner options.

Can I designate my gift to a specific program?

Yes. Most reputable IDF-support 501(c)(3)s allow designated giving. At Friends of Duvdevan, gifts can be designated to the Resilience Program specifically through the online donation form or by memo line on checks. Major gifts are structured around donor priorities in writing.

Should I give now or wait?

Don't wait. The post-October 7 wounded-veteran and bereaved-family populations will need long-term support — five-year, ten-year, and lifetime arcs of care. The institutions providing that care need stable, recurring funding to plan and deliver effectively. The most useful gift, for most organizations, is a multi-year commitment rather than a one-time spike of giving during a crisis.

The Ask

Donations to the IDF — meaning donations to the ecosystem of organizations that support IDF soldiers and their families — are not optional. They are the difference between soldiers who come home and recover and soldiers who come home and don't.

Whether you give to a broad-spectrum organization, a unit-specific foundation, a wounded-veteran group, or a bereaved-family organization, the imperative is the same: show up, do the diligence, and stay. The need will not be smaller next year. It will be larger. The post-October 7 caseload of psychiatric and physical rehabilitation will work its way through the system for the next decade or more.

If you have benefited, directly or indirectly, from the security the IDF provides — and most Jews in the world have — this is where you show up.

Friends of Duvdevan: duvdevanus.org · friends@duvdevanus.org

About the Author

Guy Farache is the CEO of Friends of Duvdevan, the U.S. 501(c)(3) that funds the welfare and rehabilitation of the IDF's elite Duvdevan counter-terror unit. He served in Duvdevan as a company commander and holds the rank of Major in the reserves. Guy Farache writes regularly on Israeli security, IDF philanthropy, veteran rehabilitation, and the U.S.–Israel infrastructure that supports Israel's elite units. He lives between Israel and the United States.

Disclosure: The author is the CEO of Friends of Duvdevan. This op-ed references other IDF-support organizations factually and respectfully; nothing in this piece should be construed as a comparative endorsement against those organizations, all of which are credible institutional partners in the broader IDF-philanthropy ecosystem.

Donations to the IDF: A Field Guide From Inside the System