AMAC’s connection to the Veteran community has a long history of dedicated support, with initiatives addressing such areas as quality of health care for Veterans, the growing challenge of homelessness affecting Veterans, and the importance of aid for Veteran-owned small businesses. With roughly 75% of the families in our membership having a direct Veteran connection, and with 31% of its more than two million members having served in the military, AMAC has stood strong in its recognition of the commitment that our cherished Veterans have made to preserving our freedoms.
Most recently, AMAC and its non-profit affiliates–AMAC Action and AMAC Foundation—have taken this Veteran commitment to new levels with a focused effort to build alliances with organizations similarly dedicated to supporting America’s Veteran community. Over the past few months, we’ve created a collaboration platform involving a diverse group of supporting organizations in a concerted effort to help meet the needs of America’s Veteran community.
Meeting monthly, this platform—labeled AMAC’s Foundation Veteran Outreach Program (FVOP)—provides a forum for open discussion on Veteran issues and has opened the door for like-minded organizations to share concerns and seek support for projects designed to address major issues. This expanded outreach includes the tracking and dissemination of updates on Veteran-related legislative initiatives introduced in Congress, matters relating to the wellbeing of Veterans and their families, and use of the Foundation’s catalog of information on programs, information sources, and resources available to fill specific needs and interests of the Veteran community. This catalog, identifying thousands of programs, informational bulletins, and sources of helpful material is housed on AMAC Foundation’s website and is available on-demand for keyword search by interested parties.
Although still in start-up mode, our collaboration platform has enjoyed participation from over a dozen Veteran support organizations in regularly scheduled virtual discussion sessions featuring the free exchange of ideas and information about specific Veteran issues. Each discussion session provides a rallying point for new ideas and an open forum for thoughts, requests for support, updates on events and project plans, and general information sharing. FVOP’s focus is on these critical areas: Veteran suicide prevention, Encouraging patriotic service, Veteran transition to civilian life, and Veterans in small business (training and opportunities).
We look forward to FVOP’s growth in the coming year as we continue to add new collaboration partners and as we build a stronger, more focused voice for the Veteran community.
Foundation Veteran Outreach Program
