The Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities at Syracuse University served 17 veterans in 2006. In the past year, programs run out of the university put about 23,000 transitioning service members through business membership programs.

Outside companies are continuing to take notice and are making monetary efforts to help.

“I wish I could say that four and a half, five years ago when we created the institute that we would have the kind of impact that we’re having such that external funders would continue to look at us,” said Michael Haynie, vice chancellor for veterans and military affairs at SU and co-founder and executive director of the Institute for Veterans and Military Families.

Over the last three weeks, IVMF has received a total of $8.5 million in funding from three companies, allowing the institute to continue its work with veterans. IVMF has grown into one of the best institutes for veterans in the U.S. and is the crown jewel of SU’s efforts to help veterans.

“Some of the large grants that you’ve seen come in recently really have been the function of the fact that the founding vision of this institute was to go out and create what would be widely acknowledged, external to Syracuse University, as the nation’s leading academic institute focused on vets and their families,” Haynie said.

When IVMF was founded in June 2011, it only had two funders. Now, about four years later, there are 61 partners listed on the institute’s website.

“Certainly when we started we had to be scrappy and we had to go out and find funding to support what we did,” Haynie said. He added that most of the original funding brought in was in the range of $20,000, rather than the million dollar grants the institute is receiving now.

All of IVMF’s funding comes externally. None comes from the university. Three major grants from late February will help the institute maintain some of its current programs, as well as achieve its mission moving forward.

A $7 million First Data grant from Feb. 17 will allow for the launch of a Center of Excellence, which will let the institute expand existing programs, especially those assisting veterans who own small businesses. First Data is the “perfect partner” for the IVMF because “they have millions of small business customers and we already know that a percentage of those are veteran-owned small businesses,” said Raymond Toenniessen, the managing director for development and external relations of IVMF.

A $1 million grant from the Wal-Mart Foundation from Feb. 17 will allow IVMF to continue work in North Carolina by helping kick off the Welcome Home North Carolina initiative to help businesses better work with veterans. It’s the third $1 million grant from the Wal-Mart Foundation to IVMF.

The Wal-Mart Foundation chose to partner with the IVMF because the two organizations’ missions aligned and the foundation wants to help veterans reintegrate into civilian life, said Tricia Moriarty, the director of global responsibility communications for Wal-Mart.

Toenniessen added that the Feb. 23 $500,000 grant from Intercontinental Exchange, the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, will help the IVMF continue its work in its three mission areas: community engagement, programming and research and policies.

Representatives from First Data and Intercontinental Exchange could not be reached for comment.

Kevin Quinn, senior vice president for public affairs at SU, said with IVMF doing so well, it helps SU’s visibility in an area it wants to be seen as a leader in. One of the ways to be seen as a leader is through external funding, he added.

Haynie, speaking as the vice chancellor for veteran and military affairs, said IVMF’s success and research will allow SU to adopt better policies to serve veterans.

“It means a lot of work,” Haynie said of receiving the funds. “The vast majority of the money that we bring in goes right back out the door to delivering programs and services to vets and their families and that’s our commitment to our funder.”

Bringing in the money to support IVMF’s programs is part of what the institute does, and Haynie is supportive of that, he said.

“The day that we stop going out and seeking opportunity is the day that I’m not the director of this institute,” he said.

There’s a purposeful strategy to get funding and it’s built on the strengths of the institute, Haynie said.

The early stages of EBV allowed the founding members of the IVMF to go after the larger-funding partnerships, Toenniessen said.

Now that IVMF has secured these large donors, Toenniessen said the institute will be able to continue its programs already in place and add to them.

“Those are opportunities for us to really move the needle on some of the issues that we’re tackling,” he said. “When we bring on partnerships like that, that are both financial in nature but are also very strategic in nature, they’re game changers for us.”

Published on March 5, 2015 at 12:01 am

Contact Justin: jmatting@syr.edu | @jmattingly306