US Veterans Nationwide Employment Safety Net: HirePatriots

Nearly half of all US veterans report that they do not earn enough income to support? themselves, their families, and to pay essential bills. Being either unemployed or under-employed is the major crisis facing our transitioning veterans. It is taking too?long to find a job that can pay the bills. As a consequence, now we are seeing a rise in suicides, substance abuse, broken families, violence, jail, and? homelessness among these most stalwart and patriotic citizens..

We have an unmet National obligation. Americans send our troops off to wars with parades and bumper?stickers declaring “We Support Our Troops!” But where is the "support" when they get home? Our job will be done when these veterans have fully reintegrated into civilian society, and become sustainably employed.?

There needs to be an “employment safety net” for US veterans in every state and community. There needs to be a?free job board where local citizens can continue to assist and support our veterans. Citizens in every state?should be hiring US veterans whenever they need an extra hand with chores around their property and homes. -- HirePatriots.com has had such a that free community job board for 18 years. It has employed over 200,000 US Military, Veterans, and their spouses in San Diego, where it was founded in 2004. And those US veterans have helped as many local residents and businesses too! -- Forming these local connections and relationships, is important to them. These new friendships help veterans financially; but, they also inspire appreciation and respect for veterans among civilians, and it increases their patriotism. -- And some of these friendships result in getting good jobs when they transition too.

Everyone who hires US veterans is blessed by the?experience. (Read their comments here: https://bit.ly/TY2YTN)

Americans with military training and experience are motivated, hard-working, honorable men and women. It is?vital to their psychological and emotional well-being that they work and provide for their needs and their families.? This is especially important for combat veterans. They should all be able to work and to maintain their dignity.

HirePatriots began when a Marine from Camp Pendleton knocked on my door. He had just returned from a tour in? Iraq and discovered that his wife had been laid off during his deployment. Their car was repossessed, and now the? utilities were going to be turned off. They had two small children. He needed to earn extra income immediately!

The Marine did some work around our home and we were delighted to pay him handsomely. -- Then we? built HirePatriots.com for other residents to post jobs for Marines too, if they needed help around their homes or? property. Within months, that website was receiving hundreds of visitors a week! It was helping local veterans,? residents and businesses. And HirePatriots received the Visionary Award for Creating Economic Opportunity from the businesses in San Diego.

But the popularity and effectiveness of HirePatriots’ employment program did not occur spontaneously. Certain? steps were required to make it a success. Our founders spoke at clubs, chambers and meetings; and, they passed-out fliers and garnered volunteers to spread the word. They spoke on every local TV News station, were guests on?radio Talk shows, wrote letters to newspaper editors and got published on their front pages. And they asked every elected official to include a mention about the job board in their newsletters. – Initiating the? program and getting jobs posted took several weeks of effort. And only then did we begin notifying the?local US Military and Veterans en masse. -- The first step was to get local jobs posted. The second step was to let the?local veterans know about the jobs available on HirePatriots.com. Since then, HirePatriots job?board has self-perpetuated and run by word of mouth: Helping veterans, their spouses and families,? local residents, Senior citizens and businesses.

Our paramount goal now is to replicate what HirePatriots achieved in San Diego all across America: In every U.S.? state, military base, armory, station; and into every metro area of our country. -- Our goal is to create a nationwide? employment safety for every US veteran in our nation. It can and must be done.

To achieve this end, we have developed a comprehensive strategy:

Cause Marketing – Our strategy creates an R.O. I. (Return on Investment) for our business ‘members.’ In return for being the? representative and spokesperson for HirePatriots in their area, we provide them a customized HirePatriots website? and job board. Then we provide them our Steps to Success, which outlines the steps we took in San Diego to get?HirePatriots started and to become a popular sensation. This involves getting our members free TV, radio and? press exposure. And we connect them with millions on the social networks. – They are able to reduce their? recruiting costs, increase their marketing effectiveness, dramatically enhance their public image, and help? thousands US veterans at the same time!

Mark Baird