NVBDC Support White Paper

Program Overview:

NVBDC is developing a Nation-wide support structure to assist the Veteran Owned Businesses (VOBs) that will be a resource for corporate businesses seeking to establish working relations with VOBs that have been certified to be owned, operated and controlled by Veterans. This initiative will meet a number of critical needs:

1. Provide real certification for all Veteran Owned Businesses with very few other options.
2. Address key barriers for opportunity with Primes, Tier 1 and Tier 2 companies.
3. Provide a venue for additional services to prepare Veterans for success – such as Mentoring, business support and financial literacy assistance.
4. Help VOBs improve professionally and develop a performance history.
5. Provide growth in local communities, as Veterans return home and start businesses.
6. Provide employment to Veterans, VOBs have a higher propensity to hire Veterans and as they grow, they hire Veterans.
7. Provide Corporations with a robust Data Base to find VOBs by industry, locations, skills and various codes.

NVBDC will support a number of different approaches to address these critical needs including:

1. Targeted business attraction efforts
2. Support for Veteran minded entrepreneurs
3. Facilitating public and private partnerships

Through a variety of innovative models, job creators will be able to provide real business opportunities to VOBs and jobs to a structurally unemployed Veteran population.  A major component of this effort is to partner with large Corporations and their purchasing functions and identify opportunities for local suppliers. For instance, if a Detroit hospital is willing to have laundry services done locally, or to purchase locally produced tomatoes, or to have computers recycled, then these business services and products could help support or launch local VOBs that could provide the jobs to local poverty stricken Veterans.  Those who are interested in participating as a customer, entrepreneur, community-based organization or funder may e-mail us at kking@nvbdc.org

Why It Matters:

Veteran unemployment is on the rise and federal and state resources are under extreme strain to provide assistance to those who most need it. The economic recession has hit those lowest on the economic rung the hardest including the Active Duty Service members, National Guard and Reserve Units returning home from active duty. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the numbers of unemployed Veterans is on the rise, with 15.1 percent falling below the poverty line in 2010. That number is even higher today at 16.1 percent, and expected to rise in the latest surveys. Census data shows that from 2000 to 2009 the employment rates  among Veterans dropped faster and further than most other demographic groups.

Traditional assistance programs have been focused on offering assistance that focuses on short-term solutions while ignoring the long-term problem. In order to address long term underemployment and unemployment of Veterans in the US, we must examine the barriers to employment.

These barriers include the perception that Veterans lack:

1. Lack of skills
2. Illiteracy
3. Access and affordability of child care
4. Access to transportation
5. Limited education
6. Lack of work history
7. Lack of soft skills

These perceived barriers are not shared by VOBs and will not prevent Veterans from being hired by VOBs and building real world job experience.  In order to assist those Veterans who are suffering unemployment, Corporations need to think outside the box to provide opportunities to VOBs that will contribute to community improvement, one neighborhood at a time. Local communities have existing government, economic development, workforce, community service programs and private sector resources with which the Veterans can partner. By providing support and helping coordinate resources with VOBs we can maximize the effectiveness of existing efforts and leverage additional private and public sector support.

Background:

We need to make sure that today’s Veterans have the same opportunity as our WW II veterans by providing them and their businesses with a Certification program that America’s Corporations will accept and the Veterans will be proud to earn.  We want to help redeploy America’s Veteran and help them create their own businesses and add to our nation’s competitiveness. The slow growth of Veteran entrepreneurship is
preventing innovative solutions to society’s problems through the use of entrepreneurial principles and organizational structures. By adopting cutting edge social entrepreneurial models we will assist Veterans in a way that has a high probability of success, strong community support, and will actually create jobs for people who have little opportunity.

NVBDC will work with public and private entities at the National level to establish initiatives to hire VOBs and target structurally unemployed Veterans. The investment that the Corporations make in this effort will leverage additional public and private resources, and lay the foundation for sustainable expansion of employment opportunities for Veterans.  There currently is a pilot program under development in Michigan with a planned launch of a venture for August, 2014. Its primary aim is to provide training for low-skilled, chronically unemployed Veterans to experience success in a meaningful job in the growing manufacturing sector, with opportunities to advance into other full-time employment opportunities in the industry. Participants will have access to on-site skills training, coaching & case management, and volunteer job navigators to help them stay engaged in employment and transition out of poverty. Additionally, any interested participants will be paired with a Veteran entrepreneur to assist in planning and launching a related business.

Program Supports:

Our new Veteran Certification initiative will support Veteran entrepreneurs that want to bring jobs to Veterans. NVBDC has a number of programs that support high tech businesses that employ advanced degree knowledge workers, and now we will provide similar support to entrepreneurs that want to get people out of low paying jobs. This model will use National level support to leverage additional public and private sector resources.

Tools that are available in this program include:

1. Funding through micro-loans and grants through public/private sources
2. Entrepreneurial incubator mentoring/educational programs
3. Business development
4. Business services
5. Site location assistance
6. Workforce connections

A mentoring and support program for the Veteran entrepreneurs will be included and we will ask the entrepreneurship programs at various universities to participate, thus creating an incubator for entrepreneurship and opportunities for entrepreneurial college students. Local Veterans would have the opportunity to present business ideas and be partnered with business school expertise for mentoring and support.

In order to ensure the success of structurally unemployed talent we will need to effectively address barriers to employment. These barriers prevent the structurally unemployed from rising out of poverty through employment and building real world job experience. NVBDC will engage businesses, organizations, entrepreneurs, foundations and others to create partnerships that will address these barriers head on and adopt innovative solutions to help people overcome barriers and become effective employees.

The benefits of this program can be summarized as:

1) Creating real jobs and valuable products/services for low income communities
2) Providing a helping hand to participants to get on the first rung of a career ladder
3) Providing opportunities for employees and employers alike
4) Addressing barriers to employment in a new and innovative way.

NVBDC will support other community and economic development efforts by going after the root cause of poverty – the lack of jobs. Also, this effort supports job creation by improving low income urban communities and reducing crime by putting people back to work.

Conclusion:

NVBDC will adopt the best ideas and systems from the private sector to launch innovative local ventures that transform communities and provide real jobs for Veterans. Through leveraging public and private resources and coordinating efforts among partners this program will stabilize neighborhoods, reduce crime and provide a path out of poverty for those Veterans who have endured hard times for too long.