Three families pledge to raise $30 million in aid for US veterans

Three affluent families have donated more than $1 million to help US veterans groups and plan to seek contributions from other wealthy people.

|
Sarah Conard/Reuters/File
Sgt. Audrey Johnsey (left) greets Sfc. Joshua Herbig (right), who she served with in Afghanistan, during the Welcome Home Heroes Parade in St. Louis in January. Three wealthy US families have pledged to create a $30 million fund to support programs that serve military veterans.

Three affluent families are forming a fund with the purpose of raising $30 million to support programs that serve military veterans, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America announced today.

The families have donated more than $1 million and plan to seek contributions especially from other wealthy people, including those without personal connections to any service members.

Philip Green, president of PDG Consulting, a health-care consultancy,  and his wife, Elizabeth Cobbs, chief of geriatrics at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, D.C., joined with their friends Glenn and Laurie Garland and with the Jim Stimmel family to create the fund, Mr. Green said in an interview with The Chronicle.

IN PICTURES: The Next Mission: Veterans Returning Home

The money raised for the new Veterans Support Fund will be funneled to five nonprofits that help returning service members and their families.

In addition to Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which will operate the fund and conduct fundraising for it, the other beneficiaries include the National Military Family Association, Operation Homefront, Operation Mend, and the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors.

Mr. Green and Ms. Cobb have donated $600,000 to start the fund, and the Garland and Stimmel families have each contributed $250,000.

Michelle McCarthy, a spokeswoman for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said the fund will focus fundraising appeals on people who can give at least $250,000, but will accept donations of any size.

The announcement of the fund comes at a crucial time. A recent Chronicle article reported that many charities that serve veterans are desperate for money.

The impetus for the Veterans Support Fund came from Mr. Green and his wife, who said they realized how fortunate they were that their three grown children were not involved in the wars and came to believe that soldiers and their families are owed a special debt.

“The message we’re trying to communicate to these families is this is a moral obligation rather than a decision to give a charitable donation,” Mr. Green said. “This is different because you really have a moral obligation to give, you actually owe [military families] money.”

This article originally appeared online at The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

• Sign up to receive a weekly selection of practical and inspiring Change Agent articles by clicking here.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Three families pledge to raise $30 million in aid for US veterans
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/Change-Agent/2012/0705/Three-families-pledge-to-raise-30-million-in-aid-for-US-veterans
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe