Military Veterans in Journalism Inc
Building Community. Supporting Career Growth. Advocating for Vets.
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Mentorships
We connect military vets with seasoned journalists who guide the former service members on their desired career path. Mentors are critical to opening doors and leading to new opportunities in the media field.
Fellowships
We find journalism fellowship opportunities for veterans, where they can later gain employment.
Disability Inclusion Program
We provide newsrooms and other organizations with training on how to report on disability.
Where we work
External reviews
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Total number of organization members
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Other - describing something else
Direction of Success
Increasing
Goals & Strategy
Reports and documents
Download strategic planLearn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Since the founding of Military Veterans inJournalism in May 2019, the world has changed dramatically. The protests throughout the UnitedStates in 2020 escalated a battle for justice and civil rights that is still being fought. The COVID pandemic has taken the lives of more than380,000 Americans as we struggle to get av accine distributed across the country to stop the deadly virus. No one has been immune from these dramatic events that have shaped our world view and our individual interactions with fellow Americans.
In May 2019, we certainly knew that starting a unique organization like MVJ would be an undertaking on its own, but we could never have predicted what was on the horizon and how much we would be required to adapt and shift our approach to accomplishing our mission.
We believe there are a few things that mostAmericans can agree on regardless of our differences:our country must have a strong, vibrant media and our military veterans must be supported as they return to civilian life following their service to our nation.
Since our humble beginning, MVJ has succeeded in supporting our membership and achieving the goals we set for ourselves in less than ideal circumstances.This success is evident in our membership growth; the series of workshops and panels we have hosted; the mentorships we facilitated; and the partnerships we created across the media industry.
Now, we must organize, scale and grow our operations to effectively and efficiently support our current commitments to our membership and to plan for a 30-50% growth that we are forecasting over then next 24 months based on an analysis of the remaining untapped market segment.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Journalism is critical to our country's future -- now more than ever. People around the world rely on news outlets to report the news accurately, objectively and with integrity; yet our world is filled with risks and challenges that make it increasingly difficult to be a journalist. Military veterans are used to work in difficult environments to fulfill no-fail missions. Our community is ready to take on this challenge. This is our reason for fighting to ensure more veterans are employed in America's newsrooms.
The Knight Foundation generously awarded MVJ a $250k grant in the fourth quarter of 2020. This investment is pivotal to our membership and the success of MVJ. This bucket of money will allow us to fund four (4) fellowships along with a series of career development events that will create substantial value for our community.
With that being said, we can't become complacent. We have identified what is needed to continue our operations. As we grow, we plan to run 10 fellowships each year while also providing a range of career development services. This will require that we raise about $400,000 each fiscal year. Granting foundations, private donors and corporations can support MVJ by funding individual fellowships or events like our virtual career fair.
We, of course, need programmatic support to invest in innovation to ensure we are spreading our donor dollar as far as possible and managing the workload for our dedicated volunteers and staff members.
We are working to professionalize our board of directors enabling them so they are able to better carry out their duty to care, duty of loyalty and duty of obedience. We know that, as board members, we have a legal obligation to be good stewards of the financial contributions that the public has entrusted with us.
We started this effort in 2020 by thoughtfully establishing committees to support our strategic goals over the next two years.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive, We tell the people who gave us feedback how we acted on their feedback
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
It is difficult to get the people we serve to respond to requests for feedback
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Military Veterans in Journalism Inc
Board of directorsas of 02/16/2024
Zachary Baddorf
Russell Midori
Mike Gentine
Jen Paquette
Babee Garcia
Priya Sridhar
Zachary Baddorf
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Transgender Identity
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
Equity strategies
Last updated: 03/09/2022GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We review compensation data across the organization (and by staff levels) to identify disparities by race.
- We ask team members to identify racial disparities in their programs and / or portfolios.
- We analyze disaggregated data and root causes of race disparities that impact the organization's programs, portfolios, and the populations served.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We have long-term strategic plans and measurable goals for creating a culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
- We have a promotion process that anticipates and mitigates implicit and explicit biases about people of color serving in leadership positions.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
- We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
- We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.
- We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.