These past few months have been a hell of a whirlwind with planning marches, merging and becoming a legitimate 501(C)(3), adding and losing cities, and finding and overcoming a hundred challenges, and more.
Today, I thought I would take a breather and talk about our mission, vision, and values.
VMOA started with a mission that we all know about: Bring awareness to Suicide, homelessness, PTSD, and the myriad other issues that our Veterans face, especially Vietnam and OIF/OEF era, but ALL Veterans. From day one, we have always talked about this march being a beginning, though until recently, we didn’t have a 100% clear vision on what was next.
Enter Victory for Veterans. The mission grew. Our ability to help has also become much more real.
Here are some links to our web site that all Board Members, Advisory Board Members, and Volunteers need to review please as soon as possible.
Steve, the board, and I believe it is imperative that all BOD, Advisory, and Volunteer Members have a deep rooted understanding of the Mission, Vision, Values, and the (5) Pillars of how we’ll fund future organizations.
I’m requesting that all individuals please take the time to review these links, documents, and videos, so there is a full understanding of the Mission, By-Laws, and the CEO & Founders Words and what makes VFV Different.
Mission, Vision, Values and our 5 Pillars of How We’ll Fund Organizations http://vfvf.wpengine.com/mvv.html http://vfvf.wpengine.com/mvv2.html
DOCS (By-laws, Form 990N, Articles of Inc., Minutes of prior meetings) http://vfvf.wpengine.com/docs.html
Words from our Founder http://vfvf.wpengine.com/wordsfromourfounder.html http://vfvf.wpengine.com/msgfromfounder.html
Founder Video and What makes us Different (watch all 6 videos please) http://vfvf.wpengine.com/foundationvideos.html
About the organization, and who is running it: Steve Durgin founded Victory for Veterans and Veterans March On: America was started by Jason Jones and myself. We are now ONE entity with one common goal. While Steve Durgin is the founder and CEO, there is a much deeper structure making this thing tick. Steve answers to a Board of Directors, which is listed here: http://vfvf.wpengine.com/the%20team.html The board is made up of two retired Colonels, a retired Major General, A retired Brigadier General, a retired Army Veteran/Teacher/Author, and three other members who are family members of Veterans, including Mothers, Fathers, children and spouses. Two of the VFV board members came from VMOA as part of the merger.
Fundraising: As you may know, our policy from the beginning was that NO fundraising would take place in the name of VMOA because we were not a Non-profit and were unable to do so without tax and legal ramifications. That fact did NOT take away the fact that this thing would cost money. So far, permits, insurance, business cards, banners, etc. have cost a little over $3500, and the large majority of that has come straight out of Steve Durgin’s pocket, as well as my own (Mostly Steve’s).
VFV is also a brand new organization and fundraising is just getting started. Our intent in fundraising for this event is to first compensate out of pocket expenses, then go toward the larger mission and expenses that arise in completing that larger mission. All the mission statements are in the links above.
Finally, I would like to thank all of you for your support and hard work for the March – we want you there for the BIKE22 and RIDE22, as well as next year when we make the March even bigger and better.
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