The authors analyzed public disclosures, foundation tax returns, federal contractor reports, and interviews to assess how S&P 500 companies support veterans. Corporate statements, foundation giving, and protected veteran hiring showed little alignment. Public data also revealed far more about hiring than about retention or advancement. The report provides targeted improvements to disclosure and contractor-reporting systems.

What Can Public Data Tell Us About Corporate Support for Veterans?

George Zuo, Jeffrey B. Wenger

ResearchPublished Sep 9, 2026

Cover: What Can Public Data Tell Us About Corporate Support for Veterans?
Download PDF
Additional Downloads

Includes Annex, S&P 500 Corporate Veteran Support Scorecard

Major U.S. corporations frequently make visible commitments to hiring and supporting veterans, yet limited evidence shows whether those commitments translate into sustained employment, advancement, or financial investment. The authors examined the gap between corporate statements and observable action by comparing public disclosures, philanthropic giving, federal contractor employment reports, and qualitative evidence. The authors focused on Standard and Poor’s 500 (S&P 500) companies because they include many of the country’s largest employers, most visible corporate brands, and major federal contractors, making them a natural test case for corporate accountability to veterans.

The authors’ findings reveal weak alignment among corporate statements, foundation giving, and publicly reported protected veteran hiring. Many large companies describe veteran initiatives in voluntary reports, websites, and press releases, yet most offer little or no veteran‑related information in mandatory Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Across these sources, what companies say, what they give, and who they hire often diverge in meaningful ways.

This fragmented data infrastructure limits accountability. Policymakers, investors, procurement officials, veteran advocates, and corporate leaders lack a consistent basis for assessing how corporate commitments align with observable hiring and financial investment. Much of the usable information comes from web-scraped text disclosures, and existing data collection mandates reveal virtually nothing about job outcomes beyond workforce snapshots and new-hire counts for federal contractors. The report provides practical policy recommendations to improve transparency and accountability, with a focus on established but underutilized regulatory and statutory channels.

Key Takeaways

  • What companies say about veteran support only weakly aligns with how they give and hire. Companies with stronger veteran disclosures do not consistently direct more foundation giving to veteran causes or report higher protected veteran hiring rates.
  • Voluntary corporate communications contain far more detail about veteran efforts than mandatory filings to investors do. Firms often describe veteran initiatives on websites, corporate social responsibility reports, and press releases, but most firms say little or nothing in investor-facing annual filings.
  • The broader diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) retreat may have spilled over to veteran programs. High-quality regulatory disclosures fell sharply in 2025 and 2026 amid increased federal scrutiny of private-sector DEI, even though federal protections and obligations for veteran hiring remained. Case studies suggest that some firms had housed veteran programs alongside other DEI activities and drew on the same staff and resources.
  • Corporate foundations direct little of their grantmaking to veteran causes. Veteran-related grants account for less than 1 percent of observed S&P 500 foundation giving, and most active corporate foundations direct no grant dollars to veteran causes.
  • Protected veteran hiring at S&P 500 contractors remained below national planning benchmarks. S&P contractors’ 2025 new-hire share stood at 2.4 percent, compared with the 5.1 percent national benchmark that took effect that July.
  • More military-related federal business does not reliably translate into stronger veteran support. Industries with larger military-related federal contracts do not consistently disclose more, give more, or report higher protected veteran employment.
  • Public data capture veteran hiring far better than they capture retention or advancement.

Recommendations

  • Issue federal guidance clarifying that veteran hiring and support programs remain lawful and distinct from DEI restrictions. Interviews with corporate veteran program leaders suggest that some companies have treated recent executive-order guidance on DEI as if it also applied to veteran hiring programs; this interpretation has no clear legal basis. The Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act remains federal law, and veteran preferences occupy a distinct legal position from race- or sex-based employment preferences.
  • Congress and the Department of Labor should update VETS-4212 reporting for large contractors to include category-specific counts of protected veteran employees and new hires, along with 12- and 24-month retention, promotion rates, and management representation.
  • Publish large-contractor veteran employment outcomes in a centralized database searchable by company, parent firm, industry, contract size, and filing year.
  • Require a light-touch Form 10-K human-capital disclosure table for publicly traded federal contractors above a contract threshold. The table should report veteran hires, workforce representation, management representation, and year-over-year retention.
  • Adopt a standardized procurement disclosure for large defense contractors. This report finds little systematic relationship between military contract exposure and observable veteran support. Large defense contractors should report standardized information on veteran hiring, retention, advancement, military-related philanthropy, volunteer activity, and chief executive officer or board oversight.
  • Develop a standardized voluntary reporting template for veteran-related corporate giving. The public tax data analyzed here capture only grants made through identifiable corporate foundations.
  • For companies, build veteran employment programs with dedicated staff, senior support, and measurable goals.

Topics

Document Details

Citation

Chicago Manual of Style

Zuo, George and Jeffrey B. Wenger, What Can Public Data Tell Us About Corporate Support for Veterans? Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2026. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA4946-1.html.
BibTeX RIS

Research conducted by

Funding for this research was provided by American Corporate Partners and conducted within the RAND Epstein Family Veterans Policy Research Institute of RAND Education, Employment, and Infrastructure.

This publication is part of the RAND research report series. Research reports present research findings and objective analysis that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors. All RAND research reports undergo rigorous peer review to ensure high standards for research quality and objectivity.

This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited; linking directly to this product page is encouraged. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial purposes. For information on reprint and reuse permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.

RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.