On Veterans Day, Who’s Standing Up for Those Who’ve Served?
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On Veterans Day, companies frequently wrap their brands in camouflage and compete for ways to say “thank you for your service.” Yet Inside Philanthropy’s coverage of support for veterans issues shows that those who fund are often those who’ve served, or otherwise have deep ties to the military community.
Even before the country began exiting its forever wars, the number of Americans with personal connections to the military is shrinking. As conflicts that involved civilian drafts move further into the rear view, the number of citizens with military experience has dropped from 18% in 1980 to 7% in 2018. In the past 50 years, the number of active-duty members has declined from 3.5 million to 1.4 million—or less than 1% of the population.
Still, a set of funders has shown a high degree of loyalty to vets, support that has been largely pandemic-proof. And there remain significant numbers of Americans either still in harm’s way or otherwise struggling following their military service. Nearly 3 million Americans have been deployed to war zones since 9/11. Nearly a third suffer traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Here’s a round-up of how funders of veterans issues mounted their philanthropic offensive in 2021, employing tactics from psychedelic psychotherapy to job training.
Epstein Family Foundation
Donor Daniel Epstein served in the U.S. Army. In April, the Epstein Family Foundation invested $10 million in the nonprofit RAND Corporation to launch the RAND Epstein Family Veterans Policy Institute, which works to find creative and evidence-based solutions to the complex issues facing vets and their families, from immediate- and long-term housing and healthcare needs to suicide prevention.
On a policy level, the Santa Monica-based think tank RAND will leverage its relationships to influence local and national decision-making around vets, and partner with the University of Southern California to conduct research, disseminate findings and educate the veteran community.
Epstein’s commitment to the Veterans community doesn’t end there, and includes both the Epstein Family Veterans Center at Cal State San Marcos and a Veterans in America podcast to share research developments impacting the community.
Steve Cohen
The Wall Street billionaire and owner of the New York Mets has close family ties to the military. His father served in the Pacific during World War II, and his son’s service in the Marine Corps included a tour in Afghanistan.
In 2016, Cohen made one of the largest commitments to vets to date: $275 million to the Cohen Veterans Network, which offers free treatment at health clinics throughout the U.S. to help military members and their families navigate PTSD and other mental health issues.
Last month, the network opened the Lawton Steven A. Cohen Military Family Clinic in Oklahoma with partner Red Rock Behavioral Health Services. That brings the number of centers to 19 nationwide, marching toward an overall goal of 25.
Along with other centers across the U.S., the clinic has delivered services virtually during COVID through CVN Telehealth, which provides face-to-face video therapy. In April, Cohen clinics expanded their reach, and formally began seeing active-duty service members.
Daniel D’Aniello
Carlyle Group co-founder and chair emeritus Daniel D’Aniello served as a supply officer in the United States Navy. He made creating a National Veterans Resource Center at Syracuse University’s Institute for Military Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) a priority in 2018, with a $20 million gift to support construction. Recently, he and his wife, Gayle, announced an additional $30 million gift to IVMF. Funds will help create an endowment to insure the institute’s long-term future.
Founded in 2011, the IVMF has spent the last decade becoming one of the most influential centers of research and programming focused on the nation’s veterans and military families, and expanding no-cost programming that helps its community navigate the transition from military to civilian life.
Bob and Renee Parsons
GoDaddy and PXG founder Bob Parsons enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps after struggling in high school, and earned a Purple Heart after being wounded in action during a tour of duty in Vietnam. His loyalty to veterans causes is at the heart of his “boots-on-the-ground” funding approach.
Last year, the Bob and Renee Parsons Foundation made a $10 million commitment to Semper Fi and America’s Fund, a $2 million commitment to Team Rubicon, and a $5 million grant to the University of Baltimore to support vets and students transferring in from community colleges.
In 2021, the foundation announced a unique partnership with the Mount Sinai Health System in New York to support its Center for Psychedelic Psychotherapy and Trauma Research, within the department of psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Pending anticipated FDA approval, the initiative will focus on training and certifying technicians to deliver MDMA-assisted psychotherapy, developing protocols for delivery to vets in group settings, and a lecture series. Parsons has personally benefited from the therapy, and wants to broaden its availability to help bring all veterans battling PTSD “home.”
January also marked the ninth consecutive year that the foundation wrapped its Double Down for Veterans Campaign to benefit Semper Fi & America’s Fund. The foundation’s $10 million match brought the fundraising total to $20 million, which will be used to support service members wounded in action and post-9/11 veterans and their families.
Schultz Family Foundation
Howard Schultz, the former chairman of Starbucks, traces his interest in military causes to former defense secretary Robert Gates, who served on the company’s board. Gates often talked about his father, who was met with nothing but low-wage laborer jobs when he returned from service in the U.S. Army following World War II.
A long-time supporter of veterans issues, the Schultz Family Foundation made it one of three focus areas, along with COVID-19 response and backing young adults. After seven years of supporting post-9/11 vets, the foundation has sharpened its focus to address the population with the worst transitional outcomes of any veteran subpopulation: junior enlisted service members between the ages of 18 and 24. Nearly half are people of color, and only 20% have jobs lined up when they leave the service.
The focus syncs with the foundation’s recent bets on supporting youth during a particularly challenging time by connecting them with ideals of public service and the economy.
In October, the foundation made $7 million in grants to improve the employment prospects of young service members transitioning to civilian life. Recipients include direct coaching and job placement services through USO’s Pathfinder Transition Program, training and placement through VetJobs.org, one-on-one career coaching through Hire Heroes USA, and employment services through the Institute for Veterans and Military Families and the Onward to Opportunity program.
That brings the total investments in veterans causes made through the foundation and the family’s donor-advised funds since 2014 to $57.7 million, and the grantee portfolio to 30.
Tom Arthur
The president of ASAP Capital grew up the son of a tobacco leaf processor in Greenville, North Carolina, before serving in Vietnam. Arthur calls enlisting “the first best decision I made.” The second was earning his MBA at East Carolina University (ECU) in Greenville.
In September, he combined the two paths that prepared him for life with a total $5 million commitment to ECU’s College of Business—$2.5 million in cash, and another planned gift of $2.5 million.
Beyond boosting graduate-level education, the awards will support the program’s student veterans and military personnel through leadership, travel and internship experiences, and financial incentives to make enrollment affordable.
Arthur Blank and Bernie Marcus
In February, the Arthur M. Blank and Marcus foundations, the charitable giving vehicles of the two co-founders of Home Depot, joined in a $40 million commitment to the Gary Sinise Foundation. Once united by shared business interests, Arthur Blank and Bernie Marcus teamed up again to support the “visible and invisible” wounds of the veterans that helped build their business.
The $20 million committed by each foundation will help launch the Gary Sinise Foundation Avalon Network, an integrated treatment and training network designed to help heal the traumatic brain injuries and PTS that afflict so many military personnel and vets. The network aims to launch 20 treatment centers for vets and first responders across the U.S.
Marcus, in particular, prioritizes healing the mind and the long-term effects of post-traumatic stress. Recent funding builds on his support for the Marcus Institute for Brain Health at the University of Colorado, and Boulder Crest Foundation’s Warrior PATHH program, which helps combat veterans and first responders find “a life worth living.”
Home Depot
Home Depot itself has long-running ties to the military community. More than 35,000 of its associates hail from the armed forces. Seventy-eight percent of stores and distribution centers are within 20 miles of a military base. The company and its foundation prioritize veterans’ independence by providing secure, safe and affordable housing, mortgage-free smart homes, critical repairs, and other work to combat homelessness.
The Home Depot Foundation recently reached a milestone of more than $400 million in support for military veterans in the past decade, advancing on a pledge that’s grown to $500 million by 2025.
Homelessness is a critical issue for returning vets. Though they make up about 6% of the U.S. population, veterans account for 8% of the country’s homeless population—a crisis made worse by COVID-19. On any given night, the Housing Assistance Council estimates that 37,000 vets go without housing, and 3 million more live in inadequate situations.
In June, the foundation committed $6.4 million to address homelessness and housing, bringing the total funding for the issue to $100 million. A $135,000 commitment through CORE will convert 25 COVID-19 shielding shelters to permanent housing for military veterans in the Navajo Nation.
A $600,000 grant to U.S. VETS will fund the construction of transitional housing in Phoenix and Riverside, California. And a $2.5 million grant to Habitat for Humanity International’s Repair Corps will fund necessary repairs to veteran living situations nationwide. Meanwhile, national work continues through the Community Solutions Built for Zero initiative, which has housed 3,000 veterans since the partnership began in 2012.
All told, the foundation and its partners have built and repaired more than 50,000 homes and facilities across the country. Like other companies, Home Depot wraps its support in the work of a volunteer force that’s logged more than 1.25 million hours of service for vets since 2012.
Google’s commitment to vets recognizes that the estimated 200,000 service members who transition to the private sector each year may be armed with real-world management and technical expertise, but that skills may not immediately translate to the civilian job market. Sixty-four percent of vets tackle the civilian job market without a degree, and 80% leave active duty without securing a job.
In November, Google announced a combination of Google.org funding and in-kind donations to help military-serving organizations connect service members and their families with pathways to economic opportunity.
Cash grants include $10 million to Hiring Our Heroes, the nationwide hiring program of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation (USCCF), to launch Career Forward, an initiative that expects to train 8,000 veterans, spouses and transitioning service members in the tech field over the next five years.
It’s the largest single grant Hiring our Heroes has received to date, and provides candidates with self-paced training and support to earn Google career certificates in areas like project management, data analytics and user experience (UX) design, while connecting candidates with employers. In total, Google has trained more than 20,000 vets in digital skills, and provided the military community with $40 million in funding and donated services to increase economic opportunity.
Harry’s
For the last few years, Harry’s, the men’s personal care brand, has focused on providing men in at-risk communities—including veterans—with better access to mental healthcare.
When the crisis in Afghanistan escalated, conversations about the war triggered mental health issues for many active service members and veterans. Several members of Harry’s leadership team are vets, and the company felt it could make a real impact supporting a community it knew well and recognized as vulnerable.
Maggie Hureau, Harry’s head of social impact, said the company immediately reached out to two long-term partners, Stop Soldier Suicide and Headstrong, that “are consistently doing impactful work in the space, to see how Harry’s could support their efforts and help scale resources.”
As a result, it invested a half-million dollars in the two partners—$250,000 to each organization. The support was timely. In August alone, Stop Soldier Suicide saw a 385% spike in requests for help year-over-year. Headstrong reported a 66% increase during the last week in August, when the evacuation took place, increasing its clinical capacity at 27%.
USAA
USAA’s community is mainly composed of the U.S. military and their immediate families, both as colleagues and as clients. The company’s philanthropy has always reflected that, though its philanthropic arm, the USAA Foundation, Inc., only fully aligned investments with veterans causes in 2014 after a rigorous strategy evaluation. Supporting military family resilience is now the signature cause for all of its CSR work.
Resilience funding is aimed at relieving the stressors compounded by military and veteran life, and includes support for the families of the fallen and struggling caregivers, and hiring initiatives for veterans and military spouses.
In 2021 alone, The USAA Foundation, Inc. expects to contribute more than $50 million to military-serving nonprofits, including $1.5 million to the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS) and $2.5 million to Goodwill Industries, to support a new opportunity accelerator that emphasizes support for Black and Hispanic vets and their families.
Fiserv
The payments and financial services technology company Fiserv’s path to supporting veterans runs through Syracuse University’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF).
Fiserv first began a partnership with IVMF in 2014, with a $7 million commitment to fund entrepreneurship resources like the Coalition for Veteran Owned Business. This year, it made an additional $7 million investment, bringing the total to $14 million.
The boosted commitment will build on its prior investment in IVMF’s growth, and will help expand programs specifically designed to support transitioning military members, military-connected business owners, and military spouses and life partners in underserved communities.
Fiserv sees the partnership as part of a larger commitment to the military community, and aligned with its goals to make the company both an employer of choice for vets and military spouses, and a resource for veteran-owned businesses.
Amazon Smile
When given the option, individual donors also vote to support the veteran community.
The Amazon Smile program allows shoppers to donate 0.5% of purchases to a charity of their choice. Globally, more than $321 million has been raised through AmazonSmile to date. The program has donated more than $8 million to military and veteran-serving charities since 2013. Popular choices include the Wounded Warrior Project, the Gary Sinise Foundation, and the Disabled Veterans Charitable Service Trust.
Like Home Depot, Amazon’s military ties run deep. The company currently employs more than 40,000 veterans and military spouses, and offers a range of career transition services to service members and their spouses. Expect that number to grow, with the company’s recent commitment to hire 100,000 vets through 2024.
Salesforce
Marc Benioff, chair and CEO of Salesforce, traces his relationship with General Colin Powell back to 1997, and credits his former board member with inspiring the model that made philanthropy a “fundamental part” of the company.
Upon his passing in October, Salesforce recognized Powell’s extraordinary service to the country with a $1 million philanthropic commitment to organizations that focus on education, workforce development and veterans.
This post has been updated with new information.
