This Foundation’s Helping Injured Veterans with an Overlooked Issue: Starting Families

Most of us probably have at least some idea of the kinds of sacrifices that military service members make, particularly those who are exposed to combat. We’ve seen the stories about missing limbs, ongoing PTSD and the years-long fight to provide veterans with medical coverage for illnesses stemming from exposure to toxic burn pits during their service.

But although many pressing needs faced by military vets get a lot of attention, not many are aware that, for a variety of reasons, U.S. service members and veterans experience nearly double the rate of infertility as the general population. Further, while the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) provides infertility treatments, both eligibility requirements and the scope of assistance available are determined by federal legislation. In other words, there are gaps. Not everyone who has been injured in the line of duty is able to receive the same level of help they need to start a family.

That’s where the Bob Woodruff Foundation’s Veterans In-Vitro InitiAtive (VIVA) program comes in. Its aim is to fill those gaps and ensure that veterans who want to are able to have children. It’s a relatively modest initiative — the program has helped veterans’ families welcome over 60 babies since its launch in 2017. But it’s a good example of the kind of focused philanthropy many veterans’ funders practice, often rooted in personal experiences of war and military service.

The same quality of recovery support

Bob Woodruff Foundation CEO Anne Marie Dougherty said that the Woodruff family was inspired to create its foundation after Bob, an ABC reporter and anchor, was severely injured covering the war in Iraq in 2006. Woodruff’s family, Dougherty said, couldn’t help but notice the vast difference between the post-hospital care that was available to Bob as an affluent, famous journalist, compared to everyday injured veterans.

The foundation got its start that same year. Its ethos is summed up by a line on its website: “We will pursue opportunities to ensure that veterans and service members have access to the same quality of recovery support that Bob Woodruff and his family received.” The funder, which reported $26.5 million in net assets in 2022 (including a $15 million donation from MacKenzie Scott), works in areas including housing, legal support and emergency financial assistance, in addition to assisting veterans with infertility issues.

When it came to VIVA, though, the Bob Woodruff Foundation didn’t just launch a fund to move money to veterans-service nonprofits. Instead, they had to create a program whole-cloth to assist vets directly. “Our normal operating model is to scour the country and find an organization that's best in class that's solving the problem we want to solve, and then we get that organization grants,” Dougherty said. “In this case, there was no up-and-running program that was working with veterans who had an injury based on their military service that needed to get connected to fertility treatment, so we created VIVA” to fill that void.

In addition to providing direct financial assistance in the form of up to two $5,000 grants to help veterans access fertility and other related services, VIVA provides direct, in-person assistance. If a vet qualifies for VA services that are medically indicated for their fertility-related issue, a VIVA associate conducts a “warm handoff,” directly connecting the veteran to someone at a VA facility who can help them. If the vet isn’t legally qualified or the VA doesn’t cover the services they need, VIVA refers them to a facility that can help. To help stretch its grant dollars even further, the foundation has partnered with U.S. Fertility, a chain of clinics and laboratories with over 100 facilities across the U.S. and two overseas, to provide VIVA-referred veterans with a 25% discount.

The program also supports treatments and strategies that the VA doesn’t cover, including helping with one adoption so far. VIVA also supports unmarried veterans, including LGBTQ+ couples and single would-be parents — all of whom are not covered by the VA for fertility treatments. “As a foundation, we have the ability to be more inclusive” and flexible, Dougherty said. VIVA doesn’t engage in advocacy, but the program does document the extent of existing needs and provides that information to advocacy organizations. Both in terms of VIVA and through its other work, Dougherty said the organization has a large and detailed set of data about veterans’ needs versus the services that are actually available in their area.

The Bob Woodruff Foundation has raised roughly $350,000 for VIVA specifically, Dougherty said, and supplements those funds with general operating support that it has received. The funder has invested just over $1.1 million in VIVA since 2017.

“A relatively small contribution for a huge payoff”

Dougherty said that she’d like to find one or more additional backers to support VIVA, calling the program an opportunity for philanthropy “to make a relatively small contribution for a huge payoff,” and citing the ability to help a veteran have a child for as little as $5,000 or $10,000.

Granted, the amounts that VIVA currently offers aren’t enough to help everyone who needs it. According to this U.S. News & World Report summary from 2020, the average cost of in-vitro fertilization alone in the U.S. ranges from $10,000 to $15,000, and other options and factors, like the use of donor sperm or eggs, are relatively expensive.

But the fact remains that many vets have been able to start families thanks to this program. Even increasing available funds to more thoroughly cover some of the more expensive options for helping vets overcome infertility would come with a relatively low price tag for interested funders. Considering the sacrifices made by injured vets and their families alongside the relative financial ease of serving them this way, I’m inclined to side with Dougherty on the wisdom of breaking out the checkbooks.

“To me, this seems like a no-brainer,” she said.

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