Guest: Bernie Colonna
Organization: Honor Charity
Location: Tucson, Arizona (serving Southern Arizona)
Category: Local nonprofit / veterans support
In this episode, I sit down with Bernie Colonna, a Tucson native, U.S. Army veteran, and the founder of Honor Charity — a local nonprofit built to provide immediate, no red tape support to veterans and their families across Southern Arizona.
Bernie shares what pushed him to build something local after seeing how disconnected national nonprofits can feel, how Honor Charity stays intentionally lean so 100% of donations reach veterans directly, and why speed matters when someone is one emergency away from losing stability.
Learn more about Honor Charity in Tucson, including how they support veterans and how to get involved.
This work is built on Tucson relationships. Bernie describes how Honor Charity partners with local organizations and community networks — including the Pima County Veterans Service Center, the City of Tucson, the local VA office, and other on-the-ground partners — to act quickly when a veteran needs immediate help with basics like transportation, housing stability, medical or dental bills, utilities, or emergency support.
Honor Charity’s model is intentionally local and veteran-led: donors can see the impact here in Southern Arizona, and veterans aren’t waiting behind layers of bureaucracy when time is the difference between keeping momentum or losing it.
Bernie recommends the Arizona charitable tax credit as the simplest way for Arizona residents to support local veterans. Because Honor Charity is an Arizona Qualified Charitable Organization, residents can donate and receive a dollar-for-dollar credit on their Arizona state taxes (up to the allowable amount), redirecting money that would otherwise go to the state toward veterans in Southern Arizona.
Another Tucson organization featured on Two Lane Tucson is Therapeutic Ranch for Animals and Kids (TRAK).
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Introduction to Honor Charity
Today I am sitting down with Bernie Colonna, a Tucson native United States Army veteran and the founder of Honor Charity. Honor Charity is a new local nonprofit focused on providing immediate, no red tape support to veterans and their families here in Tucson and Southern Arizona. We’re talking about how this kind of work actually gets done, especially when speed matters.
So Bernie, can you walk me through the moment Honor Charity really began — not the paperwork part — but the first time you actually helped someone?
Yeah, I sure can. You know, I’ve been a business owner in Tucson for nearly 20 years now, and during that time I’ve supported a lot of nonprofits.
Why Honor Charity Was Founded
But I started to get frustrated with some of the national organizations that I was donating to, and I really didn’t know where my money was going to or who I was actually helping. So when I began looking more closely, I realized that a lot of these national nonprofits weren’t actually reaching the people on the ground the way that I wanted my money to go to.
So at the same time, I was seeing some real unmet needs right here in Tucson. There were veterans struggling with housing stability, struggling with medical and dental care, utilities, transportation — things like that. So in looking at all this, Honor Charity was really born. I wanted to build something local.
How Honor Charity Operates
I wanted to build something veteran-led and something that was community-driven. So Honor Charity serves Southern Arizona veterans and their families, and we focus on immediate, practical support. We don’t just write checks to people — we actually stay involved. We work directly with community partners and we step in quickly when somebody actually needs help.
Everything we do is built on a simple idea: support that stays local. Every donor dollar stays right here in Tucson, Arizona. It goes directly to helping veterans and their families. And for us, it’s really about accountability and relationships — making sure people can actually see the impact and support that we have right here in Tucson.
Community Outreach and Growth
How are people finding out about Honor Charity right now?
Right now people are finding out about Honor Charity through a lot of our community partnerships. We work directly with the Pima County Veterans Service Center, the City of Tucson, and the local VA office. Word of mouth also helps. Our volunteers also get the word out to other volunteers.
And Honor Charity has been growing organically just through our relationships in the community and the people that we meet. What feels early or still forming for you?
Right now we are still growing. There’s a lot of opportunity out there for Honor Charity to grow financially. We are directly involved in some of the local grant programs that are out there, as well as the state grant programs.
One of our biggest things that we just got is our Arizona Qualified Charitable Organization designation. We think that that’s really going to help grow Honor Charity in the right direction because with the Arizona charitable organization designation, Arizona residents get a dollar-per-dollar state tax credit on their tax return.
Not a write-off — a dollar-for-dollar credit. And although the amount is pretty low, individuals get about $500 and those filing jointly get about a thousand dollars. It still makes a huge impact for the veterans in our community. If we could get a hundred people this year, that’d be a great impact on all of our local veterans.
Understanding Veterans' Needs
What’s something people don’t really understand about what veterans actually need in a crisis?
I wish that Tucson clients understood that Honor Charity isn’t this large national nonprofit with layers of bureaucracy. We’re local and we’re veteran-led. With every dollar staying right here in town, we can guarantee that the veterans and their families in our own community receive the need that they are asking for — things like car repairs, medical bills, housing stability, or emergency support.
When life hits hard, what surprises people once they see a situation up close?
People are surprised that Honor Charity acts fast. Our board of directors is intentional in processing applications as quickly as possible. There are a lot of other organizations and veteran networks that we’re a part of and they just can’t act as fast as we can.
Real Story: Fast Emergency Support
Can you think of a time when support came together quickly and what helped make that possible?
One of our first grant recipients — we had a naval veteran who was out of work for a couple of months. He’d already gone through his savings. Since I’m a part of the Pima County Veteran Service Center, that veteran was actually in their workforce development program.
They found him a job and he got hired and he was supposed to start on Monday — a week after his offer letter. Then his car broke down on Wednesday. He’s supposed to get to work on Monday.
I got the call. I said, “Fill out his application, get it to me as soon as possible.” All he needed was his car parts paid for because we also worked with a local mechanic that would step in and help too. The mechanic donated his time to fix his car for free. Honor Charity came in and paid for the car parts.
That was on a Wednesday. The car parts got delivered on Friday. The mechanic took the car parts to the veteran’s house on Saturday morning, did the work, and the veteran was able to get to his job and start on time on Monday morning.
That’s how fast Honor Charity can act. And that little community partnership — I think it’s really about the relationships that we’ve built here in Tucson. The veteran didn’t have money to get a tow truck to take it to the car shop. The mechanic even went to his house.
Lessons Learned: 100% Direct Impact Model
What’s something you’ve learned since starting Honor Charity that changed how you think about growing or sustaining this work?
We asked ourselves a simple question: how can we make sure that 100% of a donor’s donation will reach the individual veteran? Not 70%, not 90%, but truly 100%.
Being a business owner in Tucson for 20 years, I worked everything backwards from that idea. That meant keeping our structure incredibly lean. We don’t lease office space, we don’t have payroll or salaries, and everyone involved, including our board of directors, is a volunteer. We don’t have company vehicles. We don’t have any major overhead, and any small operational expenses are personally covered by our board of directors.
The impact doesn’t come from being big. It comes from being intentional. By staying lean, we’re able to move quickly and make sure every dollar goes directly to the veterans.
Is there anything you didn’t expect when you first started?
I did not expect the paperwork process to take so long. But besides the organizational things, getting the word out has been a lot more difficult than I expected — and that’s why we’ve ended up partnering with a lot of the community members in Tucson.
I think that’s the key to being successful as a nonprofit or a charity on the local level. You really do need to work with everybody else in town, and that has really taken us from step zero to step 10. We’re appreciative of the work that the Pima County Veteran Service Center is doing in Tucson, Arizona Workforce with the City of Tucson, and other community partnerships — Primavera Foundation, just to name a few.
How to Support Honor Charity
If someone in Tucson is hearing about Honor Charity for the first time, what’s the most helpful way for them to support veterans right now?
The simplest and most impactful way is really through our Arizona charitable tax credit. Because we’re not just a federal 501(c)(3), we’re now also an Arizona charitable organization.
Arizona residents can donate to Honor Charity, receive that dollar-per-dollar credit on their state taxes, and for most people that’s around $500 for individuals and nearly a thousand dollars for those that are married and filing jointly. That’s money that you are already paying to the state — you just get to direct it to local veterans instead.
Every dollar that’s directed to Honor Charity stays right here in Southern Arizona. It really does make an impact for veterans with housing instability, medical bills, transportation, emergency support — and if you ever wanted to make a real immediate difference in your own community, I think this is the easiest way to do it.
Terrific. Thanks for turning care into action here in Tucson, and thank you for spending time with me today.
You’re welcome. Thank you so much.
This episode is part of the Two Lane Tucson series featuring local business owners and organizations.