How Philanthropy Can Address the Needs of Our Veterans

 

It has been nearly two years since the United States began its full draw-down of troops from Afghanistan and Iraq and almost exactly two years since Philanthropy New York last brought together funders to explore the best ways to help returning Veterans thrive. What’s clear today is that some of the challenges we thought Vets would encounter have not been as pronounced as we expected and other counter-intuitive issues have arisen. Nonprofits, government and philanthropy are learning a lot about the real problems veterans are experiencing and how best to deploy resources to address them. 

 

Veterans Day is just around the corner. As funders, Philanthropy New York members are in a special position to do more than simply thank the women and men who have served our nation. Philanthropy New York, along with Philanthropy Roundtable and JPMorgan Chase, invite you to participate in an action-oriented discussion in a half-day set of programming, “Serving Those Who Served: Opportunities for Philanthropy to Secure the Health and Well-Being of Veterans Now.”

 

We will explore new research, approaches, tools and best practices to address the challenges that veterans face every day. This event will feature sessions on a wide range of topics, including how donors can help veterans succeed in higher education, helping veterans launch careers, improving veterans’ financial capability and how philanthropy can ensure veterans receive quality healthcare.

 

We’re not the only ones who recognize the need for this type of dialogue. I recently attended “Ending Homelessness for Female Veterans: A National Discussion,” a forum hosted by the Jonas Center for Nursing and Veterans Healthcare that focused on providing services to the spouses, children and other family members of the more than 10,000 homeless female veterans in New York City. It was immensely enlightening and provided important strategic directions for funding across a variety of programmatic concerns.  I believe the December 9 program will similarly lead to new ideas for funders working across a wide range of program areas, including education, health and workforce development.  

 

On a side note, JPMorgan is hosting this session in their newly renovated conference space in the old Bear Stearns building and we are one of the very first events in this amazing new space. So we are very grateful to be able to invite our members to check out this beautiful, technologically sophisticated conference facility.  

 

Please join us on December 9!

 

Best Regards,

 

Ronna