...usually any place that calls asking for a donation like for veterans or local police/sherriff dept.
You might want to check with your local law enforcement agencies before sending that check or reciting your credit card number.
Every year around the holidays, the law enforcement agencies where I live do a sort of campaign, advising people of the correct names addresses, phone numbers, etc for the various police, sherrif, etc related charities, and advise people who receive calls to ask for address, phone number, as well as state registration numbers.
This is because every year, there are unscrupulous people who do calls and solicit money ostensibly for thing like wounded/retired etc law enforcement personnel and their families, and give organization names that sound very official, and very similar to organizations actually affiliated with the police department, etc. They are very successful at collecting money, especially from elderly people.
The problem is that they have no connection with any law-enforcment related charity...