When workers break ground in Austin, Texas, next week on a new house for a wounded veteran, financial advisor Shane Morrow plans to go in shirt sleeves to help in any way he can.

That’s because the groundbreaking will be a celebration for a pro bono client of Morrow’s who has qualified for a specially equipped house from Homes for our Troops, a national charity that has been building homes for wounded vets since 2014.

While the homes are free of charge to wounded vets, those who apply are required to have a financial plan to ensure they have the budgeting and financial skills in place to successfully pay taxes, utilities, insurance and all the other expenses that come along with home ownership.

“That’s where we come in,” said Morrow, a founding partner with Austin-based Iron Bridge Wealth Counsel LLC. “We work with veterans on a pro-bono basis to make sure they have a financial plan that will allow them to successfully cover all their housing costs.”

Morrow is among the advisors across the country who work with the Military Pro Bono Program of their state’s Financial Planning Association (FPA) chapter to provide pro-bono planning services to veterans.

“We always wanted to give back and this is a nice way to do so with a mission and purpose,” said Morrow, whose brother and father are both first responders.

Working with vets is just as personal for Jonathon Harrington, who recently returned from his third tour of duty overseas as an officer with the U.S. Army Reserve.

“I'm a veteran myself and am also co-chair of the military pro-bono program with the Massachusetts FPA Chapter, said Harrington, an advisor with Milestone Financial Planning LLC in Bedford, N.H., who has done pro-bono financial planning for veterans for more than a decade.

Harrington said he works with applicants for Homes for our Troops as well as veterans and active and deployed service members and their spouses.

“When you work with service members, especially on the active-duty side, a lot are so young, [so] retirement planning is not on their mind. They are thinking about cars and enjoying life and the fun they can have while not deployed. But that’s where advisors can come in to give them a nudge regarding the power of compounding and the new match they can get in the Thrift Savings Plan,” Harrington said.

Under the U.S. government’s new “blended” retirement system, which went into effect in 2018, active-duty military personnel automatically make a 3% of salary contribution to the plan, but they can make a 5% contribution, which will be matched dollar-for-dollar by the government.

“Previously, if you left before 20 years of service, you walked away with only what you put in. Now you have the government’s match,” Harrington said.

He also works with active duty military spouses. “We had a new wife of a service member who was deployed come to us a few years back who wanted to know how they could repair their credit to buy a house when he returned,” he said.

“We sat down with her and said, ‘Here’s what you need to do to clean up your credit so you’ll be able to get a VA [Veterans Administration] mortgage when he gets back.’ We got them to the point where they qualified and got a house,” Harrington said.

“It was a very stressful situation and we gave them hope. The great thing is she set a goal for herself, paid off debt, saved for a down payment and deployment went by a lot quicker for her,” added Harrington, who has been in the Army Reserve for nine years and has served in the East African nation of Djibouti and Poland.

“It’s important to our group to give back because service members go through a lot. If we can help them with our financial expertise, we are happy to do that because of the sacrifice they make,” he added.