Blacklisting the National Veterans Business Development Corporation
pic by brent and marilynn
Honorably served and deserving of the support the money was intended to give. However, some organizations fail to meet their mission and should be terminated.
The National Veterans Business Development Corporation was created in 2001 as a nonprofit by congress to help veterans start and expand small businesses. It has received over 17 million dollars from the federal government to date.
What has it accomplished to date? Very little related to its goals. A recent Senate report shows no audit since 2006, salaries far higher than the typical compensation, lack of board oversight, fund raising expenses in 2007 of $240,000 to raise $64,000, spending on programs not related to the mission and expenses not shown to be linked to any program. According to the Senate report the organization states that it is not required to have an Audit.
I agree with the Veterans of Foreign Wars that this organization needs to no longer receive federal funds. I would go further and say that THE TIME HAS COME FOR
National Veterans Business Development Corporation TO GO OUT OF BUSINESS.
Do not donate to this organization. There are many others that will do a better job. Check out Guidestar for a veterans group close to you.
February 12th, 2009 at 8:35 am
I won’t knock any organization that helps veterans and the businesses they own since any help is better than none; however, I do know there are many other resources online that do a decent amount of work for veteran owned businesses. Most of these resources don’t charge a dime (and get $0 in funding).
Check out the VeteranOwnedBusiness.com Directory for instance: http://www.VeteranOwnedBusiness.com. There are over 1,000 veteran owned businesses listed with a ton of information about each company. There is also a non profit section with detailed information about organizations that offer free services for veterans, active duty military, families of veterans and active duty military and service disabled veterans: http://www.veteranownedbusiness.com/browse.php?category=172.
Total cost to veteran owned businesses for a listing = $0. Total government funding for VeteranOwnedBusiness.com = $0! Value to small, veteran owned businesses that are struggling right now in today’s economy = priceless (ok… maybe it’s not priceless… but it does help!).
July 6th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Glad I came across this. In 1999, I was asked by the U.S. Small Business Administration to assist in facilitating the development of a Government Chartered Organization to assist Veteran-Owned Businesses as per PL 106-50. I did this gladly and was instrumental in creating the framework for the original NVBDC (we got tired of saying the entire name over the phone). In 2000 I was asked to come aboard with the original staff to help develop the organization.
I would like to state that the original staff was approved by a Congressional Committee and all had a firm background in business and/or economic development.
Within six months we had procured $200 million in federal contracts for a consortium of Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Businesses. This was associated with the Coast Guard’s “Deepwater Project”. Around this time, there was a change in the leadership of what was to be thereafter referred to as “The Veterans’ Corporation”. The new leader was a retired two star general, who had spent his entire career in contract acquisition, which was one of the agencies that had caused the recognized need for the NVBDC.
I must admit that I spent a good deal of my time generating a usable database of Veteran-Owned Businesses. I had even contacted the VFW and the American Legion obtaining information concerning businesses registered with them. I also obtain the SBA’s and the VA’s data, compiling a list of 128,000 Veteran-Owned Businesses. This list was acquired with the understanding that it would be used strictly to assist in identifying potential candidates for contracts.
The first thing the new administration did was use the database to send out a request to 68,000 Veteran-Owned Businesses requesting a donation to the organization. This was contrary to the agreed use of the data.
The second thing the new administration did was cancel the “Deepwater Project” involvement and prohibit us from participating in any such further activities.
From that point on the focus of The Veterans’’ Corporation was changed from viewing the Veteran-Owned Business not as our “Product” but as our “Market”.
The Veterans’ Corporation was supposed to be self-sufficient within six years, from that point not requiring further Federal funding. Obliviously this goal had not been obtained even though within the first six months our commission from the Deepwater Project would have achieved this independence.
I lasted two and a half years, in the end finding myself marketing “packaged” training programs and attempting to get veterans to subscribe to an “empathy” veteran credit card. It was extremely difficult to watch such a promising opportunity for us to help a very deserving population (Service-Disabled Veterans), deteriorate into a self-serving and parasitic organization.
July 9th, 2009 at 9:46 am
If you have a suggested Veterans group that has the Veteran first, please feel free to make the suggestion.