Mission & History
Mission
NCVRAC serves as an interface between those 800,000+ North Carolina Veterans (and their families) needing and seeking help and those who are willing and able to provide resources and assistance. The need for support during the transition from military life to reintegrating Veterans into the civilian world is great but never greater than now with the proposed reduction in armed forces accompanied with some proposed curtailments of benefits.
Our primary goal is to do everything possible to make sure that each and every North Carolina Veteran has every chance possible and that they never take an action because they were unaware of an opportunity to get the help and assistance that they so richly deserve. Secondary goals are to provide accountability to donors and philanthropic groups for their generosity and also to to deliver a business model that insures sustainability for those legitimate organizations that serve the North Carolina Veteran Community.
History
During a meeting involving the Director of the North Carolina Division of Veterans Affairs (NCDVA), one of the founders of NCVRAC realized that there were numerous resources available for Veterans but that in many cases the Vets and their families were unaware of those programs, benefits, services and other forms of help that were available to them merely for the asking from the various federal, state and local agencies. This group of providers includes the Veterans Health Administration (VA/VHA), the NCDVA and multiple state/local agencies and groups. It also includes an amazing amount of private sector organizations that exist to serve Veterans and their families. The founding partners found that while there were multitudes of resources available, the level of awareness of these aids was very low. At the same time, there were corporate, foundation and individual entities in the private sector who want to help but either did not know how or were unable to discern between all of the organizations who came to them in search of funding for their various Veteran assistance projects. In order to create the “link” between all of these groups, NCVRAC came into existence to serve as a facilitator and interface.
NCVRAC fulfills the need for an organization that will allow both Veterans of North Carolina and entities who support our Veterans to work together through a central site to find and provide resources and to build awareness of them to our Veterans and their families. Many of these resources are already available but their existence is unknown to many of those Veterans in need. The North Carolina Division of Veterans Affairs (NCDVA) offers a multitude of resources, programs and benefits to our Veterans but they are virtually unknown to many of the 800,000+ North Carolina Veterans and their families. The Veterans Administration has numerous programs and services that can help Veterans but they are not well known. There are corporate entities and foundations that have funding available and are willing to help when they can but unfortunately don’t have adequate staff to properly investigate every request they receive. For various reasons, they are sometimes reluctant to step forward on very legitimate requests. There are organizations in existence that rate “501c” organizations but they focus their “qualified opinions” on organizations that have a minimum of $1,000,000 in annual revenue. That eliminates many if not most of the 1500+ private North Carolina support organizations from their research.
The goal of the North Carolina Veterans Resources Awareness Center (NCVRAC) is to focus on our North Carolina Veterans and those qualified North Carolina organizations that provide resources for support of our Veterans. By working closely with the North Carolina Department of Veterans Affairs, the Veterans Administration, the entities who so generously support Veterans assistance programs in the private sector and the numerous organizations across the state of North Carolina that provide support and services to our North Carolina Veterans, NCVRAC will work to enhance the lives of and somehow partially repay those who have given so much to protect and defend our way of life.
The NCVRAC will serve as a two way conduit for Veterans to learn of resources available to them and for those who care to communicate their concern and appreciation. Their concern can be expressed through financial support going directly to those local organizations whose focus matches the mission of the donor or they can work in conjunction with NCVRAC to make sure that their contributions are maximized in the good that they do for our NC Veterans. One of our primary goals is to create a vehicle that will provide accountability to donors, sustainability for programs and an efficient means to do so. Our main goal is to do everything possible to make sure that each North Carolina Veteran has every chance possible and that they never take an action because they were unaware of an opportunity to get the help and assistance that they so richly deserve.
THANK YOU FOR HAVING THE VISION TO SUPPORT OUR VETERANS IN THIS WAY. PLEASE NOTE AT THE STATE LEVEL, WE ARE THE NORTH CAROLINA DIVISION (NOT DEPARTMENT) OF VETERANS AFFAIRS. YOU ARE WELCOME TO VERIFY THIS INFORMATION BY CALLING THE MAIN NUMBER TO NCDVA: 919.807.4250. THANK YOU.
Thanks for the clarification Terri. We’ve made the correction and our apologies for the oversight.
Your division does such great work and deserves to be addressed in the correct manner.