Mission and Vision

Mission:  Veteran Central’s mission is to support U.S. Military service members and their families as they transition from Military service to new Veteran civilian lives and identities.  Veteran Central is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) (acting under Charity for Debt for tax deduction) providing innovative programs, scholarships, and eCommunity connections to positively impact transition challenges at both macro and micro support levels.

Vision:  Veteran Central’s overall vision is to create a seamless, frictionless Military to Veteran transition process for all past, present, and future Veterans of the United States of America.  Veteran Central achieves this vision by investing donations and revenues to develop sustainable programs and build partnerships that address challenges in employment, education, health, benefits, and money management.  In 2013, our efforts are primarily focused on putting Veterans to work as we believe having a steady paycheck enables a purposeful foundation to be built so other transition challenges can be addressed over time.

Why Veteran Central was created:  Our nonprofit was created to honor America’s Veterans for protecting our freedoms and liberties that many Americans take for granted.  Our freedom is not free and we are paying back America’s warrior heroes by applying our talents and abilities to lead Veterans who struggle with their new civilian identities toward positive programs, education, and connections to trusted advocates.  George Washington once said “the willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation.”  We take this statement to heart and believe by properly caring for Veterans we will create a stronger and more secure United States and because it is simply the right thing to do.  Our community force works tirelessly to turn negative perceptions and poor performing programs into positive perceptions and experiences as a demonstration of what America stands for, by the people, for the people.

Veteran Central’s Core Values:  Veteran Central is focused on executing on it’s mission and achieving it’s vision every day.  We hire the best and work with the most passionate, committed partners as possible in order to produce remarkable results.  We constantly reassess our strategies and tactics based on continual learning of best practices among other nonprofits and businesses.  Below is our top core values that we feel will make us successful in 2013 and beyond.

• Full Transition Process – Veteran Central focuses on five transition zones that take place in a Veteran’s life as the leave their Military brothers and structure behind and start new, independent civilian lives with their home family and community.  This process varies in length of time and difficulty depending on the Veteran’s role and experiences while serving in the Military.  Veteran Central creates programs and builds partnerships to support all Veterans within these five transition zones:  employment, health, education, benefits, and money management.  We know we cannot solve all of the challenges in these five zones immediately and that is why in 2013 we are spending a majority of donation revenues to create innovative employment programs and will list partner programs for other transition zones.  As Veteran Central grows, donations will be spent to develop programs in all five transition zones and also give to partners who demonstrate remarkable results in addressing targeted challenges.  By donating to Veteran Central, you can be assured your resources will help Vets from the start of their challenges all the way to independence.
• The Whole Veteran – We believe the fastest, most effective method to achieving our mission and vision is to support not just Veterans, but their spouses, family members, and local advocates.  A Veteran’s soldier experiences give them unique talents such as discipline, reliability, leadership, and ability to handle large amounts of stress, but many Veterans must learn how to dramatically change their lifestyle and emotions to the civilian world.  Spouses and local advocates who love and care for their Vets are the front line warriors and heroes who welcome their loved ones home and lift them up as they go through many painful adjustments.  Veteran Central’s programs, scholarships, and eCommunity are developed to include the Whole Veteran, which to us means family and friends.  We salute anyone who lends a hand to a Veteran to help them through their transition.
• Macro and Micro Support – Veteran Central is designed to help many at a macro level through scalable programs and also serve Veterans at a micro level through individual scholarships to attend school and obtain training certifications.  45% of any donation we receive goes to create and operate our macro programs while 35% of any donation we receives goes directly to our scholarship funds where donors are connected to who received their scholarship donation.  The other 20% of donations goes to support our eCommunity and operate the Veteran Central organization.  Our donors can feel secure that their contribution will impact many but also directly benefit individuals in pursuit of advanced education.
• Sustainable Programs -There are many programs to help Veterans address a wide range of transition challenges.  Our donation revenues will be invested to develop programs that are aligned to our mission, are results driven, focused on sustainability, are innovative, and help as many Veterans as possible.  We carefully study the transition process by surveying Veterans and speaking with top advisors to determine where the largest gaps are in the system.  We then identify opportunities and trends in America and create programs that match those opportunities with Veterans.  We demand all of our programs to create revenues to ensure budget sustainability through sponsorships and other profitable business models.  Please review our employment programs page to see examples of these sustainable models.  Our donors know that 40% of their contribution goes to creating programs that will not need continual giving and instead their continued giving will build on top of their investments to help more Veterans, more often.
• Donors are Customers – Veteran Central runs on donations.  Without committed individual and corporate donors, Veteran Central would not have the necessary fuel and resources to fight the war on Veteran to civilian reintegration challenges.  We ask our donors for money and promotion to their networks for annual gift giving.  In 2013, we have an overall campaign goal of raising $1 Million.  In order to achieve this goal, we give our donors many benefits.  First, we highlight donor’s names, photos, and a bio on our donor page along with a virtual memorial to a Veteran or family they care about for all of time.  Second, we send monthly updates to donors on how their donation was applied to develop the Veteran Central programs.  Third, we directly connect our donors to the end recipient of any scholarships that were awarded with their money by asking our scholarship awardees to send thank you emails and monthly updates as they reach their education goals.  Fourth, we invite all donors to participate in private eCommunity focus groups and online discussions about how to improve donor benefits.  Finally, all donors can participate in our public eCommunity discussions to collaborate on solutions for addressing specific challenges in the Veteran transition process.  Donate to Veteran Central and we will build a lasting relationship and a remarkable experience that serves our nation’s Veterans.
• Community Development – Happy customers (Veterans, Donors, and Sponsors) are a direct result of happy employees and volunteers.  Veteran Central takes pride in knowing that we hire the best and expect the best of our community because the stakes could not be higher.  We are a young nonprofit and plan to grow by adding passionate, intelligent, hard-working individuals to our team.  We have a policy to hire staff from our volunteer ranks and to provide top quality staff development benefits.  Our staff, volunteers, and advisors are empowered by thousands of eCommunity members who are local Veteran advocates and loyal American patriots.  We work with sponsors who donate merchandise, gift certificates, and discounts to community members who demonstrate remarkable achievements that align to the Veteran Central mission.
• Partnerships Fill Gaps – Veteran Central has a broad mission to address all challenges related to the Military to Veteran transition process.  We know we cannot address every challenge alone and that is why we rely heavily on our partner organizations to fill gaps in the transition process.  There are over 20,000 nonprofits that have services to support Veterans.  We actively pursue nonprofit and for profit organizations that demonstrate a commitment to serving Veterans and meet our rigorous partnership criteria.  We then promote our partner programs through our distribution and outreach channels while also providing funding if required.  Our partners teach us how to be better advocates and elevate our message to an even greater Veteran audience.
• Technology Pioneers – One unique differentiation between Veteran Central and many other organizations supporting Veterans is our investments and staff development in innovative technologies.  Almost 95% of Veterans and their caregivers are connecting to the Internet via desktop PCs, tablet computers, or mobile smartphones.  Yet, there is a significant lack of tools, resources, and apps that cater to the Veteran community.  Veteran Central aims to dramatically change this paradigm and use technology to the maximum of its capabilities.  The Veteran Central eCommunity is just the first step in a series of Veteran targeted online properties that will connect Veterans in unprecedented ways.  We plan to provide many scholarships to teach Veterans how to become app developers and web designers so they can create tools to directly address transition challenges anytime, anywhere, on any device.