29A- Venture Concept No. 2

This is my second venture concept on my organization "Homebound", which is a not-for-profit organization helping military veterans readjust to civilian life after returning home from their time of service. I have received some very helpful advice regarding my idea, and I have adjusted my idea accordingly. 

Opportunity:

     Every day military men and women return home after their time of service. As of January 2016, all across America there were over 39,400 veterans who were homeless. In 2014 alone, there were an average of 20 veteran suicides per day. The number of veterans who are homeless, unemployed, have mental health disorders and substance abuse disorders is unacceptable here in the United States. Numerous men and women return home and have no direction on what to do, where to go, or how to readjust. These military men and women who need assistance on their journey back to civilian life are exactly who I am looking to help with Homebound.

    Currently, there are a multitude of military organizations that provide assistance to military veterans. These organizations include the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Wounded Warrior Project, Disabled American Veterans, and more. All of these organizations help in various ways, many of them focusing mainly on wounded veterans. No one organizations offers the services that all veterans could potentially need, which is readjustment to civilian life. I want my organization to be open to military men and women, and their families, assisting them in their transition back to the United States

Innovation:

     As I stated above, I want to offer a service that is like no other. I want my not-for-profit organization to assist all veterans who return home, not just the ones who were wounded in combat. Even those men and women who were not shot or physically wounded, tote mental burdens that sometimes need attention as well. And even aside from mental or  physical wounds, sometimes veterans have been away from civilian life for so long, that they do not even know how to go about adjusting back. Whether it be counselling for mental health problems, assisting wounded veterans, or offering simply a friendly hand in adjusting back, Homebound will be an all around go to for veteran transition needs. 

     Being a not-for-profit, my organization will not focus on profits, but rather on helping. Of course we will require capital to run, and our financial capital will come from grants and donations from the government and generous patriots wanting to support our cause. Through my relationships connecting me with multiple state representatives, as well as the numerous CEO's and business owners that I have, I have become aware of numerous grants and funding availability opportunities that will make funding a very small problem to stress. Conservatively, our working capital for the first year will be $500,000 which is a very realistic and achievable number. I know of multiple non-profit organizations that receive government grants and donations of more than double this amount, and I know that we can receive the funding to make this happen.

      Aside from our financial capital, human capital will be volunteers across the country who are looking to assist the veterans on their transitions. In 2015 alone, there were over 62.6 million volunteers that spent an average of 52.6 hours of volunteering for the year. We plan to have numerous part-time volunteers that only volunteer when their schedule allows it. We will have a board of directors. They will help us efficiently and effectively allocate our resources. On the board, I will sit as chairman, and the other board members will have military experience. Who better to help veterans than other veterans. The board is not a full time position. We will just meet and discuss decisions when needed with monthly meetings. 

     Along with the volunteers, we plan to have a team of paid employees as well. We will have a full-time marketing agent that is paid on a salary basis that works to spread our organization out to the world as much as possible. This individual will be in charge of social media, collaborating with other organizations and event planning. As we grow, we will hire on a team to assist this position with their duties. We will also have a full time employee, also on salary, in charge of career and job location for our veterans. This individual will help find jobs and careers for our veterans in need. Another paid position that we will have is a full time counselor who will be required to have a minimum of a bachelor's degree in counseling or psychology. As we grow, we intend to grow the number of paid full-time employees.

     We hope to be able to collaborate and work together with other organizations similar to our to expand and reach as many in need as we can.

Venture Concept:

      At first, I believe the first people who are going to seek out our services are going to be those who return home from their military service and are seeking out their plans now that they have returned home. We will provide life advisement to these men and women helping them stabilize back civilian life. While teaming up with organizations such as MilitaryFriendly.com, we will help them find potential employers to find a job, and assist in the other areas of life including social, financial, home buying, and more.

     Once our name has been established and the success of our organization begins to spread, we plan to have veterans from all ends of the spectrum seeking our services for their transition back to civilian life. When it comes to military not-for-profit organizations, we do not consider any of the others to be competitors, because as long as we are all helping veterans, than we have the same goal. With that being said, it has been made clear to me that they are indeed competition to my organization in terms of taking our funding away from us. Our organizations are competing for funds. This is not a huge problem that we are concerned about at the beginning stages of our startup because of the ways we will receive funding as I stated above. Also some of the weaknesses that have been exposed in recent years with some of our potential brother or sister organizations include fraud and money laundering. Our business venture will be sure to exemplify the highest standards of integrity to build an outstanding reputation. We will have a competitive edge over many of the competing organizations because we will not have the bad reputation that some of the others have made for themselves. 

Secret Sauce/ Unfair Advantage:

     The resources that we possess are extremely important in ensuring the success of our organization in the long run. Our most valuable resource that we possess is our connections that we have. Connections can make or break a company depending on who you know. With the various connections that we have, they will be assets to us, guiding us to success along the way. There are currently twenty-one military bases in Florida. We plan to get in contact with each of these military bases and let them be aware of our services and what we have to offer. The point in doing so is to allow them to know of our services and allow us to be able to get in contact with those getting ready to leave their time of military service so we can help them immediately. As we grow, we will gain new connections as well, further growing our connection base. As a not-for-profit for the military, we will have a slight advantage because many people will want to help us more opposed to others. Our connections that we have and that we will gain is by far our most valuable asset.

What's Next:

     I was once told in an entrepreneurship class that you want to think big, but start small. When we first start our organization, we will be working with limited capital, and limited volunteers. As we grow and expand though, we will grow infrastructure and assets to where we can do more and help more veterans. There will always be veterans returning home that need assistance, and helping them will always be our focus, no matter how large we grow.

My Goals:

     The point of the organization is not about me at all, but it is about the veterans of the United States. I want to give back to those men and women who gave so much for us. In the future, as we continue to grow, I want to help more veterans and recruit more people to join our cause. While networking with everyone we can along the way, I hope to achieve a reputable status with many, and build relationships that will last a lifetime. My goals include but are not limited to continuing to assist the veterans, and helping others start their own not-for-profits as well.

Feedback

I received a lot of helpful feedback regarding my first venture concept! I received a lot of positive feedback, as well as a lot of constructive criticism that helped me make my venture concept better! 

     I had two individuals that elaborated to me that even though there were other organizations that were helping in the same goal that I was, they were competition. They told me that we would be competing against each other for funding and grants. So I changed my idea on financial  capital. I got in contact with some of the contacts that  I have and that I have acquired along this journey to help figure out my capital situation a little bit better. I came up with an effective strategy regarding the situation.

     I also received feedback regarding my human capital. There was a concern regarding volunteers, and I received a suggestion to implement some paid employees. I created a better strategy. I will implement a board of directors to help us allocate funding appropriately. We will also implement a handful of paid positions starting off. I understand business structure and what it means. Along with the paid employees, I visited the website for the United State Department of Labor and I went through the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I found that there were 62.6 million people who volunteered in 2015, and the average time that they spent volunteering for the year was 52.6 hours. With my connections and marketing strategies, finding part-time volunteers will not be a problem.

     I also received feedback regarding contacting military bases to collaborate with them regarding my business idea and such. I did my research and found that there twenty-one military bases in Florida, and I found out how to contact them once we are established. 

Here is the logo of Homebound: