Eligible charities are all the types listed here EXCEPT certain private foundations and all donor advised funds. Red Cross, Salvation Army, and United Way are eligible, don’t know about Honor Flights.

(A) General ruleAny charitable contribution to—(i)a church or a convention or association of churches,(ii)an educational organization which normally maintains a regular faculty and curriculum and normally has a regularly enrolled body of pupils or students in attendance at the place where its educational activities are regularly carried on,(iii)an organization the principal purpose or functions of which are the providing of medical or hospital care or medical education or medical research, if the organization is a hospital, or if the organization is a medical research organization directly engaged in the continuous active conduct of medical research in conjunction with a hospital, and during the calendar year in which the contribution is made such organization is committed to spend such contributions for such research before January 1 of the fifth calendar year which begins after the date such contribution is made,(iv)an organization which normally receives a substantial part of its support (exclusive of income received in the exercise or performance by such organization of its charitable, educational, or other purpose or function constituting the basis for its exemption under section 501(a)) from the United States or any State or political subdivision thereof or from direct or indirect contributions from the general public, and which is organized and operated exclusively to receive, hold, invest, and administer property and to make expenditures to or for the benefit of a college or university which is an organization referred to in clause (ii) of this subparagraph and which is an agency or instrumentality of a State or political subdivision thereof, or which is owned or operated by a State or political subdivision thereof or by an agency or instrumentality of one or more States or political subdivisions,(v)a governmental unit referred to in subsection (c)(1),(vi)an organization referred to in subsection (c)(2) which normally receives a substantial part of its support (exclusive of income received in the exercise or performance by such organization of its charitable, educational, or other purpose or function constituting the basis for its exemption under section 501(a)) from a governmental unit referred to in subsection (c)(1) or from direct or indirect contributions from the general public,(vii)a private foundation described in subparagraph (F),(viii)an organization described in section 509(a)(2) or (3), or(ix)an agricultural research organization directly engaged in the continuous active conduct of agricultural research (as defined in section 1404 of the Agricultural Research, Extension, and Teaching Policy Act of 1977) [1] in conjunction with a land-grant college or university (as defined in such section) or a non-land grant college of agriculture (as defined in such section), and during the calendar year in which the contribution is made such organization is committed to spend such contribution for such research before January 1 of the fifth calendar year which begins after the date such contribution is made,shall be allowed to the extent that the aggregate of such contributions does not exceed 50 percent of the taxpayer’s contribution base for the taxable year.

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• The IRS has an online lookup tool to help in validating a charitable organization: 

https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/mainSearch.do?mainSearchChoice=pub78&dispatchMethod=selectSearch

• After making the necessary entries to search for a charity or sharities, be sure to verify that the field “Deductibility Status” shows “PC”, indicating a “Public Charity”.  Others, such as private foundations (“PF”) and donor-advised funds are not eligible for QCD donations.  You can click on the entry in the “Deductibility Status” column to see a pop-up with an explanation.

• Many eligible organizations are not listed in this index, including many religious congregations and governmental entities.  This can make the question of eligibility somewhat complex, as you can see from the extract of IRC section 170 posted by Alan.  But when the IRS index shows “PC” for an organization, that should be considered as a positive answer. 

• Regarding “Honor Flights”, there are many organizations listed with names starting with “Honor Flight”, all of them listed as “PC” (approximately 66).

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