SSAFA vs Help for Heroes
In short: SSAFA helps serving personnel, veterans and families through casework that secures grants from other charities, plus its Forcesline helpline. Help for Heroes runs its own physical health, mental health and welfare services for veterans and families.
Last reviewed by CharityCompare editorial.
Both support the Armed Forces community, in different ways. SSAFA, which also helps people still serving, reports helping more than 50,000 people in 2025, and its volunteer caseworkers secured £8.03 million of pledged support raised from service and other charities. Help for Heroes delivers its own services: in 2024/25 Hidden Wounds supported 1,748 people and its Clinical Team 1,154.
SSAFA vs Help for Heroes: key differences
| What to compare | THE SOLDIERS, SAILORS, AIRMEN AND FAMILIES ASSOCIATION - FORCES HELP | HELP FOR HEROES |
|---|---|---|
| Registered work and operating model | Welfare casework, a helpline and specialist services for serving personnel, veterans and their families. | Physical health, mental health and welfare services and individual grants for veterans and families after service. |
| What to consider | Its casework mainly obtains grants for individuals from other charities, and its rules bar grants to institutions. Its 12,000 casework figure is called people in one place and contacts in another, so read it as contacts. | It no longer runs Recovery Centres: the Ministry of Defence took them over in 2024, so older descriptions are out of date. It reports counts for each service rather than one total and does not say how many people used more than one. |
| Access and practical checks | People with at least one day’s paid service, and their families, can ask for help through Forcesline or a local SSAFA branch. Its branches are part of the charity and included in its accounts. | Start with its online form, helpline or My Recovery portal. Its grants service is not a crisis service, and it also distributes the government’s Veterans’ Mobility Fund. |
| Sourced result or evidence gap | More than 50,000: People supported across its services. 2025, UK and overseas. A charity-reported output; casework led to 5,484 financial cases with £8.03 million in pledged support, and Forcesline handled 18,128 consultations. | 1,748: People supported by Hidden Wounds, its mental health service. Year to 30 September 2025. A charity-reported output; its Case Management team supported 1,322 people, and around 65% of those who completed it reached the goals they set, by the charity’s own measure. |
What the latest filings show
Figures from the accounts held in our dated dataset; the live register may contain newer filings. Ratios can span multiple years, as labelled. Clarity scores use our methodology. Cost to raise £1 of donations is not part of the score; legacies make it lumpy, and it is withheld where trading costs would distort it (how it works).
| Metric | THE SOLDIERS, SAILORS, AIRMEN AND FAMILIES ASSOCIATION - FORCES HELP | HELP FOR HEROES |
|---|---|---|
| Latest accounts year in our snapshot | 2025 | 2025 |
| Financial snapshot refreshed | 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-06 |
| Ratio reporting window | 3-yr avg | 3-yr avg |
| Overall score | 80/100 (4★) | 67/100 (3★) |
| Accountability & Finance | 100/100 | 100/100 |
| Spend on charitable activities | 87% of expenditure | 57% of expenditure |
| Fundraising efficiency | £12.6 total income per £1 fundraising (2023–2025, disclosed years) | £2.3 total income per £1 fundraising (2023–2025, disclosed years) |
| Cost to raise £1 of donations | Not shown for 2025: trading income was 22% of donations | 44p per £1 (2025) · 49p over 2023–2025 |
| Latest income | £33m | £23m |
| Fundraising spend | 13% of expenditure | 43% of expenditure |
| Reserves | 45 months | 30 months |
| Accounts filing | On time | On time |
| Data confidence | high | high |
| Charity number | 210760 | 1120920 |
THE SOLDIERS, SAILORS, AIRMEN AND FAMILIES ASSOCIATION - FORCES HELP on the register · HELP FOR HEROES on the register
Considering SSAFA
- You want to help serving personnel as well as veterans and their families.
- You value volunteer caseworkers who find and secure grants from other funders.
Considering Help for Heroes
- You want to fund physical and mental health support that the charity delivers itself.
- You want to support grants for veterans and families, for items such as medical devices or help with living costs.
SSAFA vs Help for Heroes: questions answered
SSAFA or Help for Heroes: which should I support?
There is no universal winner. SSAFA helps serving and former personnel and their families, mainly through casework and its helpline; Help for Heroes runs its own health, wellbeing and grant services for veterans and families. Choose the kind of help you want to fund, then check the accounts period. A financial rating is not an impact assessment.
Does Help for Heroes still run Recovery Centres?
No. Help for Heroes says that in 2024 it reached an agreement for the Ministry of Defence to permanently take over its former recovery centres. It now supports veterans and families through its own services, its helpline, the My Recovery portal and community activities.
Who can SSAFA help?
Its website says anyone with at least one day’s paid service in the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, British Army, Royal Air Force or Merchant Navy is eligible, along with partners, former partners and other family members. Its 2025 report says the only two criteria for assistance are eligibility and need.
How we score charities +
The Clarity Score is a 100-point rating from UK regulator filings (Charity Commission for England and Wales, OSCR and CCNI). Four pillars — Accountability & Transparency (40), Financial Health (30), Financial Efficiency (20), and Community Support (10) — each scored on a continuous scale, not pass/fail cutoffs. A statutory inquiry sets the score to 0 automatically.
Accountability & Transparency
Scored from filings
40 points — filing history (15), trustee oversight (15, scaling up to a board of three or more), declared policies (10).
Financial Health
Scored from filings
30 points — reserves (15, full marks 3–24 months, tapering on both sides), income stability (10), liabilities to assets (5, scaling down as debt rises).
Financial Efficiency
Scored from filings
20 points — program expense ratio and fundraising cost, each on a graduated scale (not a single cutoff). Kept at 20% of the total: financial-ratio scoring alone is not a reliable effectiveness signal (see "why not just an overhead ratio?" below).
Community Support
Scored from filings
10 points — volunteer-to-staff ratio from Charity Commission workforce data, scaling continuously up to a 2:1 ratio.
Overall score
Sum of all pillar points. Display stars use the same bands as the labels: 90–100 → 5★ Exceptional; 75–89 → 4★ Good; 60–74 → 3★ Needs improvement; 1–59 → 2★ Poor; 0 → not rated.