Last week, our Executive Director Rachel O’Hern was honored to participate in The Invictus Games Symposium on Invisible Wounds presented by the George W. Bush Institute with a panel of subject matter experts and share her thoughts on the role of nonprofit organizations. See a brief summary of her thoughts below:
Regarding the role of nonprofit organizations, I believe that private organizations should provide complementary programs to existing government services. Here at Quality of Life Foundation, we always work in collaboration with a family’s VA or DoD care team to ensure we are all working efficiently to the same goal: improving the total well-being of the veteran families we serve. It is our responsibility as stewards of donated funds to ensure that we support needs not met by the government, rather than duplicate an existing program.
Additionally, nonprofits must adapt our services to the changing needs of the populations we serve. It can be tempting to create fixed program models based on what we as “experts” like or what we think would be best, but we must be receptive to what our families tell us is most helpful to them. Here at Quality of Life Foundation, we do our best to respond to the needs of each family based on their individual situation.
Our thanks to our friends at the Bush Institute for including us in your event, and for continuing the discussion on the challenges of invisible wounds!