Veterans Are Civic Assets

This week, we’re happy to introduce a new guest blogger: Mary Yonkman, Chief of Staff at Civic Enterprises, co-author of All Volunteer Force, and military spouse.  Mary provides practical guidance on how every community can better harness the skills and commitment to service of returning veterans to meet the needs in local communities.

Here’s an impressive statistic to consider – 92 % of OEF/OIF veterans believe serving their community is important. Better yet, the issues they want to address have a profound impact on our nation at every level:  the high school dropout crisis, the environment, disaster relief, wounded veterans and military families, and poverty. The best welcome we can give this generation of veterans is to recognize that they are civic assets, not charity cases, to the communities which they call home.

But despite their willingness to serve in their community, veterans often aren’t aware of local needs or ongoing programs that they can support. Here are simple and practical ways you can help veterans connect with the people and organizations that need them most:

If you are a nonprofit:

•  Proactively encourage this generation of veterans to serve within your organization.
• As you identify volunteer or national service needs, consider the immense skill sets of this generation of veterans, and how you can engage them, and their families, to meet critical needs in your community.
• Form partnerships with active duty military installations, veterans service organizations, and local veteran leaders.

If you are a military family or veteran service organization:

• Make concerted efforts to ensure veterans, military families, and service members are aware of the diverse opportunities to serve in your community.
• Connect them to nonprofits like Hands on Network, United Way, Habitat for Humanity, and Big Brothers Big Sisters.
• By taking the time to understand the type of volunteer opportunities they are looking for and where their skills would be most useful, you can better match them with a local organization they might not otherwise know about.

If you are a citizen in the community:

• Ask a veteran or service member to serve alongside you.
• Take them to a Habitat build with your family. Invite them to mentor at a local high school. Connect them to nonprofit and service sector job opportunities.
• Take time to learn about the skill sets they gained in the military and affirm that those skills can have such an impact on the community you share.

Mary Yonkman is the Chief of Staff at Civic Enterprises and co-author of All Volunteer Force (link:http://www.civicenterprises.net/allvolunteerforce). In October, she will begin as Chief Strategy Officer at The Mission Continues (http://www.missioncontinues.org/)