 Just kind of want to kick off and I did this a couple years ago where I kind of I've heard that public speaking is 90% how you say it and only 10% of what you actually say People don't care how much you know unless they know how much you care These are cliches that I'm just thrown out for your amusement And and that the more you know if you know some personal detail about someone when they're trying to convey a message to you You're more likely to retain the information So a couple of years ago. I was doing my seminar and here's my wife. My wife and I she's a DAV member Amy Claire Give her a round of applause. She's not here She's maintaining four pigs at our house and all the rest of the farm. So God bless her But anyway, Amy was getting up in the morning and she was going to take care of our chickens We have a you know, we gotta let the chickens out in the morning and we live in a real rural farm No one I mean maybe two cars drive by our house all day So she's out with her shorts on Right out of bed and she had shorts on and mutters, you know going out to take care of the farm So she goes out to take care of the farm and I get we've just gotten one of those blink cameras Does anyone have a blink? There are a lot of fun, right? You can sit there. You can turn them on And ours you can speak through them if you want to so I see Amy coming back in and I say Hey, babe. I love you and one of those speakers and she doesn't you know She she didn't hear it or whatever. She I didn't know this. She'd gone upstairs. I got a little frustrated I had to go do at my seminar. So I said I said what anyone would say to comfort your wife when she's home on a farm and rural Kentucky all alone. I said Red Rom Red Rom So in the next blink camera shot and she won't let me show it anymore But in the next blink camera shot you have my wife downstairs In her mutters and she was I didn't know that she was in the restroom and she she had a Drawn Glock and she was going clearing the house room by room So it was a lot of fun. So that's Amy and now you all remember everything I say But more on Amy more on Amy before I stop a lot of people You know you went through the pandemic and people took up a hobby Did anyone here take up a hobby during the pandemic? Amy's was she decided that she wanted to be an investigator of aliens That's not a joke Amy Brockman Claire became a field investigator for Mufon the mutual UFO network Her business card is up here I don't often play jokes on my wife, but this is her business card if you if you see a spaceship or an alien Call my wife and she'll write it down and these people in Cincinnati put it in a record somewhere and the government will know you're crazy So if you took down her card, that's great. Here's the back of her card just in case anyone's interested That's my wife Had a great time it's been a great year for me we did Earlier, what was it April? I went to the University of Chicago And spoke about burn pits everyone knows about burn pits, right? And it was important. It was a great event John Stewart was there. I got to meet him and flow Groberg. Does anyone know flow Groberg story? That guy is awesome and he we're friends on Facebook now, which I only consider him a friend He doesn't know who I am but nonetheless here. We are But I got to go do that I got to be on Mike Rose podcast and when I think about DAV and I think about teamwork. I think about how It's it's it's not what one person does or where one person's at it It's all got to go back through DAV. The power is DAV We're we're the spokes so DAV gives us the opportunity to leverage all these resources to help people And that's what's special about DAV. You can go out there and find another 501c3. There's 95 million of them. I think serving veterans today. That's an official statistic, too There's a lot of them and a lot of them do really great work, but through DAV. We're able to do the big stuff. I mean we're Maybe a bad example, especially after last night, but we're Budweiser and they're craft beers You know what I mean? We're the big ones who get the job done And they're the ones that make those IPAs that no one really wants to drink But when it came comes to the burn pits really it was it was a situation where I had joined the Marine Corps Rob Lewis and I were roommates in the Marine Corps And that was back in like 94 98 time comes to get out of the Marine Corps And I thought you know in any MOS I could go back into the reserves in the Marine Corps And I could become a recon Marine I could I could take my Very extensive combat correspondence skills and become one of those real recon guys or maybe a sniper, you know, and I thought well Maybe I'll just join the Navy SEALs see if I can get into the Navy become a SEAL I I I mean I I did pass most of my fitness tests while I was in the Marine Corps, so I thought I Thought I you know as I can't do a dead hang pull-up, but I still can do a dead hang by the way Very fit, but instead I decided to join the Air National Guard, right? natural progression Navy SEALs Air National Guard flipped a coin ended up in the guard and Because I was in the guard I'm not gonna make fun of the guard because they're a professional group and after 9-eleven happened. We saw what the guard did But I got to tell you that after going from the Marine Corps into the Air National Guard When like the secretary stands up and says that there was courage involved in a decision, you know and being a whistleblower or leaking this information I felt like Not that much because you really don't know how little I cared about my rank in the Air Force or How far I was gonna go in the Air Force? I I was doing it just to be a part of something I just wanted to keep something going and that's that's how I ended up in the military But I do want I would be grateful if anyone here would would help me out And this is Shane Learman. Is Shane in here? Great, we'll be able to surprise him. Please everyone go out of your way to thank Shane Learman He also has a podcast. It's very interesting. It's co-produced. What's shaken with Shane? It's co-produced with Psycho Bob his cat What is it? It's a podcast is what he says But Shane is Shane was someone who did the muscle Kerry Baker helped get the burn pit registry started Joy Elam's been on this issue for 15 years The communications department's been working on this forever and not for nothing, but we had 500,000 plus DAV can messages last year This is a DAV victory and all of our victories are DAV victories And and what we're seeing we're seeing great momentum with the PSAs and I'll let Rob speak to that I think is are these people in the room? Please stand up and wave if you are they were coming in Is Julius in here? All right. He didn't make it Our ability though to advocate is is what's important and the skills and stuff that I'm that Rob and his guys are gonna talk about They can help you just it's not about taking credit. It's not about It's it's not about your ego or who you are as a person It's about making DAV better and I want to show you something that I think is very interesting How many you know just outreach wise if you could in this room if I might embarrass some of you But raise your hand if you've donated a hundred dollars to DAV in your lifetime Okay, keep them up as I keep going. What about two thousand dollars? four thousand dollars $10,000 All right Raise your hand if you ever recruit a volunteer at DAV Raise your hand. All right, so I'll show you something Generally accepted accounting principles. Does anyone know what that means? That's how DAV quantifies the value of volunteers and that happens at thirty three dollars and nineteen cents an hour if You were to ask someone to be a volunteer for DAV and they have the time on their hands and how many of us know someone like that raise your hand if You did that And that person donated say they worked three days a week or or four days a week just short hours or Whatever time they had but let's go ahead and say on the bright end. It's going to be 24 hours a week times that by 52 and That is the value that Volunteer donates to DAV and that's you can be a conduit to that by helping recruit volunteers And when Rob talks about what the team does up here What he's talking about oh by the way The reason why I haven't donated thirty eight thousand dollars to DAV is because my wife was a Marine drill instructor who clears rooms with a Glock when I'm not home and She's a lot more touchy about finances. Here's a look at can It's important right now that we protect what we have I don't know if everyone here is aware of how How much VA has grown in the last 20 years or so, but here's a graph Fiscal year 1990. Oh, let's go back. Let's just go back to 9-eleven. Where were we at here? 48 billion dollars was DAV's Was appropriate for VA right before 9-eleven. We're up over 300 billion dollars for VA right now That's like a six-fold increase that we're seeing right now And the reason we are the reason why that happened largely because we are the ones who advocated To increase the budget to take care of caregivers to take care of burn pits Take care of veterans who'd been on multiple deployments take care of veterans who had survived things that they wouldn't survive in any other Combat era that's because of our advocacy and that successes comes from this team as well up here So We have to protect right now here. Here's something that's a look from last year By the way, my wife made it all the way to Staff Sergeant And I made it to Corporal and my slides are out of order now But wasn't I wasn't I cute? He was a cute Lance Corporal, wasn't he? There's there's value in what we do and and we need to we need to leverage that and that's that's Packed acts coming there's a deadline right what what's going on the the communications department everyone gets together We say what's a creative way to do it? John Stewart's been on this issue. Can we work with John Stewart? We write the most irreverent press release in DAV history Duffel blog takes it and turns it into something that bordered on obscene, but they reach a large audience of veterans It's a set satirical website. So, you know, check it out Duffel blog John Stewart DAV it'll it'll pop up but now we're working with the media company for free getting a placement because they know that by August 9th that people don't apply or or File an intent to file or submit an intent to file claim. They're going to lose a year's worth of benefits Communications outreach that's how we get the word out and John Stewart has been a partner with that and DAV's Doing Twitter exchanges with him and it's it's gonna make a difference because there's still five days left And anyone in here with a couple clicks who shares that information are gonna do a good job We care more about each other than anyone else cares about us and that's why DAV was founded We didn't have a VA we'd no one was there to do anything for us. We were gonna have to do it ourselves That's infused into the DNA of our organization and it's a fight for justice. It's about keeping the promise, right? And that's what we do When I got out of the Marine Corps, I learned how unique and special that was Because I went to work for an ad agency in Newport Beach, California, and I was a fish out of water I'd been in the Marine Corps for four years I worked with Rob Rob and I would go out and I mean we didn't I was never going to be in recon But I could take pictures of them when they were So I was out there Rob and I were collaborating all the time and it was about I would help Rob in the morning He'd help me in the afternoon. We'd come back follow the story And I'd drink Jim beam in my room and watch it that night and go to sleep So that was our life and it was purposeful and it was driven when I got out I went to an advertising agency is anyone in here just by the way Offended by toilet humor if you are please go ahead and exit the room or just put earmuffs on for a minute But I go to this ad agency and I'm thinking you know You go to a military base and you get walked in and someone takes you around They say this is where medical is and this is where the chaplain is you they'd say to me You definitely need to know where the chaplain is the chaplains right over there Go see the chaplain often come back and see more because you have a lot of problems that they knew about that I didn't quite realize yet, but that was my military experience I get out in advertising and I'm going I'm trying to solicit advice on how I can succeed With people who had spent the last four years interning for Disney and being in college It was an entry-level job as personal branding and what I got from them the only piece of useful advice I got from anyone the only person who was moderately concerned about my success was someone who said Never be in the restroom when the CEO goes to the toilet and They treat me like an alien because I was a Marine, you know They they they had been around Marines up in El Toro and and they knew what they were getting And I didn't know what that meant But the person wasn't smiling when they said it it wasn't like it was a joke It was like it was a health warning, you know So You know my first week goes by I'm stressed out the next week goes by and and at one point I end up using the facilities and He came into the room like bin Laden's compound was being stormed He literally shoved the door open storms in goes into a stall and it sounded like trench warfare in there I have no idea what he eats. I have no idea what was going on Zero clue I couldn't before I was done washing my hands. He was done and gone and he had done more in there than I did, okay That was the only advice I was given by someone who was invested in my success That was the advice that was the key to success in civilian life that I would get from a colleague out there So we can do better when we're taking care of ourselves We can be a better part of a team that company did personal branding by the way It didn't help that the CEO was the only other veteran in the company Which might have informed how they treated me when I first got there or I might have just been obnoxious. I don't know But this team up here was personal branding and the idea was your part of your brand is your is who you are as a person It's the glasses you wear. It's the way you treat people. It's your disposition All these things are part of your brand and when I came to DAV It's the same kind of thing, but we flip it on its head our success comes from telling personal stories So instead of it being about the person or about who was the whistleblower on burn pits versus who was the reporter Who wrote the story versus John Stewart? It's about the whole it's about it's about using our individual stories to get to something big Because I was DAV That's why burn pits happen. It wasn't because of me and it's because of people like this and Rob's team is extraordinarily talented and I've probably taken up more of the time that he allotted for me But as everyone in my first ad agency knew I am obnoxious So I have to step out after giving you toilet jokes. I have to go help with the chaplain seminar I'm serious. I'm going there next You can you can go if you want to learn about not proselytizing if you're a chaplain, but that'll be available later But that's all I got Rob's gonna be around The guys can give you my wife's business card if you see any aliens And I'll leave a few of mine behind too, and I'll kick it over to Rob. Thank you. All right So, yeah, I've been doing this job for about four years I had to follow him into this role where he was incredibly successful and now I got to follow that with No toilet jokes no zero pictures of my wife, please don't tell her But thank you dance. It's we really appreciate that and you actually left me with a slide here that I'm not sure what it is I believe Look as Dan mentioned, he's taller than I am In addition to everything else as the department DAB's communications or national communications department We embody where we strive to embody that collaborative Approach that Dan is talking about us and it really does come down to stories. That's what motivates us That's what what gets us out of bed in the morning It's the chance to collaborate with veterans on the state local national level It means everything to us and we have a team that is made up of Just the basics here, you know, we have 12 to 15 writers editors photographers designers artists of varying types We've got several of them are out here in the audience right now. There's one taking a picture of me There's one running a video camera right here, and then we've got a couple up here with me as well This is to my left. This is Todd Hunter who was our deputy national communications director And to my right is Elizabeth D. Pompey And she is our communications associate and she'll be talking to you later on about women veterans report But again, we have a we have a very lean team We're an efficient team, but again, we're we are highly motivated To to serve our members and the ways that we do it I think that you know, most of you are familiar with DAV magazine it starts there. It's where most of our stories start. It remains the flagship It's the main hub for all of our coverage The comms calendar is dominated by the production of this magazine When we are incredibly proud of the content and the appearance of every addition we put a lot of thought into this More so probably than anything else because everything else comes from the magazine itself. It's a calling card at the a-hospitals It's goes in the congressional offices. It goes to the White House It's the official record of our organization when we want to know what was going on With agent orange in 1975 we go to the DAV magazine in 1975 and read through them to find out What was going on? It's it's that important to us and we want You know our colleagues 20 years down the road when they want to know what's going on with burn pits to look in our magazine to find out Not somewhere else From the magazine those stories as individual stories and editorials are broken down And shared elsewhere on other channels. Please dance Clicker here and of course the the web the website is the first stop after the magazine The entire magazine of course is on there As well our individual stories and all the other dynamic and well-crafted information that we provide to all of you As most of you know in 2022 you could see there we have we updated the site to provide a better user experience It was completely refreshed and the design is meant to drive Key to users to key aspects of the website and that that was done Not as much for all of you here although all of you here I hope are appreciating love the new website It was really meant to draw in a new audience to talk to a new audience in a new way Because we have to continue to bring in new members new supporters a new lifeblood to our organization The launch took place in December of 2022. It included a new architecture and a new site map and Really what our biggest concern was after we launched this aside from making sure that all of you knew where to find the things that you're Normally wanting to find because you all have my phone number was a potential dip right after you refresh something it can Cause a dip in your your search engine optimization and your organic search I'm using words right now that Matt Sainting another one my team members out there He's probably like oh god, Rob's gonna talk about SEO. He doesn't know what he's talking about But I do things with that guy right there We I'm proud to say That we have been able to analyze between December 16th when we launched the the new site in April 30th of this year And we put that against the same time frame as last year And it's it's we had 11% increase in users a 9% increase in new users a 6% increase in sessions And what's more and Matt just updated me with some of these facts just before this this presentation We matched July of this year So just last month with November of last year which is traditionally the most high-performing month as you can imagine for people looking at DAV's website because of Veterans Day and we actually trend ahead of November in July right that's a really good sign and all of this matters the reason why I'm bringing this up all of This matters is because it means that more veterans and more supporters are finding our website Without us having to pay for that traffic. That's incredibly important. We're gonna continue to refine the website I know that that Doug Wells probably mentioned about 75 times yesterday That we have a newly redesigned member resources section. We're gonna continue to refine redefine that or refine that as well But it's critical to our success that you are Arming yourselves with the tools that you can find on the website, especially that member section The next channel of course is social media. We're currently engaged a Multi we have a multi-million follower audience on four primary channels at Facebook Twitter LinkedIn and Instagram We just added threads and we'll we have a twitch stream that we'll be going live with it's already up But we're not really putting much content on it right now and over the years DAV has grown this social presence through building relationships But with social media is every evolving capabilities. It's critical to adhere to some of our best practices in order to dynamically Effectively and correctly engage the social media community and here to talk more about that is our deputy national communications director Todd Hunter Todd Falling two big guys here. Sorry give me a second. How's everyone doing? Excellent excellent so Yeah, as Rob mentioned, we currently have four main These are four main social media channels, but we're on a couple more So in each has its own purpose right Facebook Twitter, which is now X. It's gonna get hard to get used to But Facebook really good for our general posts that will Basically support all of DAV departments all the way from membership to fundraising got more than a million Followers on Facebook Twitter. We're at about a hundred thousand That is something that is very good for our legislative advocacy posts as well as voluntary services Instagram is a you know that things that perform well. It's obviously a photography based platform So we're always putting good imagery from any of our events on there and providing the links So forth LinkedIn right now is our fastest growing social media channel. We Focus on job fairs Patriot boot camp and so forth YouTube that's really essentially our video hosting platform We don't do a whole lot of the social aspect of it But very important tool all these sessions and so forth are gonna be on DAV's YouTube channel The seminar so you can go home watch them from there threads, which is the new Twitter alternative or ex alternative from Facebook It gets convoluted. I know you guys know it's so new. We're still trying to figure it out But and then there's twitch Which we are going to focus on Livestreaming to a younger audience Maybe get some NSOs on there playing video games and essentially talking to other veterans and letting them know about our services We're also hoping at some point once we get there to use it as a Fundraising fundraising mechanism as well. So we're excited for that a lot of that's probably gonna get kicked off You guys might have heard in Randy Reese's Directors report Yesterday that the Washington headquarters is moving Part of that is we're getting a new studio in there that will give us a capability to Basically have these live shows and talk to everyone All right, so reasons why we use social media number one We need to communicate important veteran news to supporters and members now What do I what do we mean by important veteran news? That's something that important veteran news is is anything that is going to affect All of us like the Pact Act or at least a large majority of us You know, we want to stay away from sharing the controversial stories that of you know There was one a couple weeks ago that we got a lot of outreach about a lot of people writing us angry that There was something out there about veterans getting homeless veterans getting kicked out of Motel to make room for immigrants, so which turned out to be completely Fabricated untrue story right and as sad as that is right. We we don't want to see our brothers and sisters on the streets it was something that was focused on 10 fake people which is what they were like I said it one real but You know so again, I'm gonna move on from that one We use it to promote DAV events things like our annual mid-winter conference and winter sports and golf clinics National Convention The DAV 5k any of the Memorial Day Veterans Day events We share our video in media content We repurpose everything that you see in DAV magazine. We will share online Just to get you know more eyes on it provide updates on the organization when when Barry was appointed Adjutant when Mark retired when Cody became executive director the those kind of big leadership changes And provide some updates on our veteran advocacy efforts Michael Stegner is our social media manager at national headquarters and what he does is he will Every time a can alert goes out From the commander's action network. He will just turn the text of that into a 30-second little video and provide a link to the actual can alert and The reason that is so important is it really helps our engagement by turning The commander's action using make turning it into a video gives the algorithms of Facebook Place a priority on that and it gives us better placement. So again, that's Getting better eyes out there and then last but not least connect and engage with our members So we get a lot of a lot of good mail from you guys a lot of a lot of back patting You a lot of our members aren't shy when they don't like article that we That we did and they'll engage us on the back end and you know ask some questions happy to answer them and Move on All right. So yeah again our different types of audiences our members Come to our social pages. They ask a lot of questions of things like, you know, hey, where can I get? You know new new business cards. Can you send me the logo for our new social media page? Items like that they will also as I said some will will use it as an opportunity to air their grievances Which we will then sometimes when necessarily Pass it on to the IG send to the service department for action trying to help Folks out with their claims and so forth So members you guys are our number one Audience the other one being donors and you know, let's let's be real it takes money to run an organization and so we can Continue providing our free services and and for us to be able to show donors that we are good stewards of their the dollars that they donate to us goes a long way in basic Maintaining a revenue stream so we can continue providing our services to veterans and last but not least DAV and veteran supporters We we you know want to position ourselves as a Authority on veterans issues, right? We have two women veterans reports working on three Which Elizabeth will go over here in a little bit We got the the caregivers and the unsung heroes initiative, you know our work there was instrumental in getting the caregiver benefits expanded to all areas and not just post 9-11 so Yeah, there we go running a chapter page here It's very important sadly very often, you know a lot of chapters are kind of small have the same folks in the same position for Years upon years and and for whatever reason it'd be a health issue moving away Sadly death, you know, it'll it'll cause problem not cause problems, but it presents challenges for the people who are still there at the chapter and Just as simple as logging in and getting access to the page we get that that you know inquiries about what's the best way to go about that and You know, we don't want to have to ask someone to create a new page because they can't log into their Their current account, right? There's only so much we can compel Facebook to do so that's why it's very important to create a a Basic email address to Attach to the count that everyone has access to So make sure you do that our naming convention. I believe this is in our social media guide Which can be found on the website? But DAV chapter number and city and state So we ask you if you're an admin to please follow that Naming convention just kind of for a little bit of brand uniformity Amongst the entire organization Same thing as far as Twitter or sorry X. I'm I'm just gonna keep calling it Twitter if that's okay. It's Really gonna take for me, but be sure to include the relevant info in your public details Contact information is hugely important email address phone number link to the The chapter website so folks can figure out, you know, that everyone communicates has Different preferred methods of communication. So the more you can put out there at the better chance you got Making sure they can get a hold of you. Nothing falls through the cracks So Social It's important to know that if you do not have Someone designated as the social media manager or whatever title you want to give them that Responsibility falls on the commander. I think a lot of you know a commander already has plenty on his or her plate So we very highly recommend designating a specific person to run your social media accounts and you know a big thing of Anytime you're running a social media account content is key, right? You need to constantly be updating responding to folks, but it gets a little hard, right? There there's some communities some chapters where Not a lot is always going on but that doesn't mean you can't some supplement Your Facebook page or whatever might be with some things from the national page That helps you guys from the local chapter level If you're continually posting that will help The algorithm, you know when people are searching for your stuff. It also helps out national with a lot of our analytics, so Please don't be afraid to post and share anything from national highly encouraged and it anytime You're running a page. It says check it no less than every 72 hours I really think it should be checked two three times a day personally but I you know we run at a different tempo than a lot of a lot of the chapters around the country, but very important though that any Negative comments that you get it's those are the ones you really want to pay Special attention to and make sure you respond to them as quickly as possible A lot of folks aren't going to be satisfied with whatever you have to say sometimes It doesn't need to turn into an argument. We've all seen the the cesspool of Mud slinging that's on social media. It's really not a place for it You know sometimes you just got to end a conversation and move on Another thing to do develop a posting schedule stay in front of the audience I know what we do at national we work At least a month out Creating graphics getting our texts approved and that's for you know for things like you know if it's In June we're gonna be Coming up with our 4th of July graphics and posts Things that we can think ahead on we're doing stuff for the D-Day landing in May right because it's June 6th And that takes it doesn't really take a lot of time to kind of focus in I think we have a living document that we Update every year because we sometimes become aware of these special Recognition days that we might not have been aware of the year prior we add to it And we take that document and work a year or a month out from that to make sure we're Properly Recognizing all the all the different days months military events military birthdays so forth and We really encourage you guys to have fun with with your social media counselors a Chapter in Frederick Fredericksburg, Virginia where George Washington was well near where George Washington was born and spent his Formative years before going to Mount Vernon and they have this little George Washington doll that they take around take shoot photos of kind of like you know, he's visiting and They're very good at You know kind of turning it into a story making it light-hearted and fun while also it's key while also Talking about the organization and letting their members know. Hey George It's gonna be at the meeting on Wednesday. Make sure you're there with them, right? So very very much encourage you guys to have fun with it Want to give some examples here of some stuff that has done really well at the chapter Department in chapter level DAV chapter 92 Great photo there bottom left of the community coming together I can't remember off top of my head. What exactly this is but it obviously shows DAVs involvement in the community big crowd there smiling faces DAV chapter 39 there in the bottom right that was a great Facebook live actually it really wasn't anything special but what it was was different than the Majority of the content that they have on that page otherwise and it performed two three times as better as Many of their other posts so be sure to add some variety in their department of New York a Lot of times when you upload a profile photo or a cover photo it will cut some things off Cut off the the name and whatnot. So they did a really good job of paying attention to what Facebook recommends for Photo sizes and so forth and it's just got really good You know cover photo up there DAV Department of New York nice and big you can see the Profile photo that goes circular all the sudden everything is still within that circle. So Good job there by them And in DAV chapter 12 great job taking Volunteer photos and just showing DAVs involvement in the community Want to show some examples of what? probably What you don't really want to do with some So I was hoping to get some audience involvement in this so if you don't mind taking a look up there I'd really if someone could let me know what they see wrong here and Why it's wrong. I'd greatly appreciate it. I'll a bell. I see you up there in the front I know I know you're a social media guy. Let me Point something out for me, man The old logo right I know it's hard for some people to To let go but we have plenty of new logos plenty That's what it is now and we can get that to you just email Michael give you his contact information later again, you can also Contact us directly through Facebook's page. You sir in the green That is exactly correct got a kind of a Political post there and yep, we need to remain non-partisan a political Got one more thing on this slide. Can anyone see it? Yes, sir. You sub in where do you see that? That's true, and we're not fundraising off of it though So I think that's how why I didn't really hit on that, but there's one more on here, ma'am Bingo no contact information no website So Those are some things you got to make sure you have in there. I'm gonna move on to the last one here What do we see here folks? Red Cross why why is that a no-no? Yeah, we we can't Using DAV's platform to solicit funding for other organizations big no-no You're gonna get a nasty gram from Ed Hartman that you probably don't want so definitely stay away from it anything else Anything else up there sir? I'm sorry Still have the old logo. That's correct It does it does and that falls under that kind of political advocacy there that we Need to stay away from That does it you guys got them all right? congratulations And I am going I'm done the airman now, so thank you all very much. I'm gonna turn it back over to Rob enjoy convention Thanks Todd I really appreciate that and I just if we could talk a little bit more just for a second about the especially the political aspect of social media The men and women in this room No one Has done more except for those who paid the ultimate sacrifice out of this country have done more for to protect freedom of speech To you absolutely 100% deserve freedom of speech because you have paid so much to earn it but We're talking about We're talking about DAV's DAV's property DAV's Facebook page is what you represent our organization at the local level. That's what we're talking about We're not talking about your own your impersonal stuff. This is all about DAV social media So we're gonna be headed into an election year in 2024 It feels like we're already there right now in so many ways and it's gonna be a contentious long contentious season and I just ask you all to keep that in mind as you're managing these assets that have that are public facing So we've talked about the ways that we reach out You know we talked about features and news stories that we run DAV magazine and on the website You know obviously our social media posts There's some things that we didn't mention like special events that we support myriad of Special events that we seem to support those seem to be growing every year from the winter sports clinic golf clinic To this event here. I mean we we During is gone now, but she probably could tell me how many Different tasks that we have just for this loan event. I'm gonna guess it's somewhere around 350 if I'm if I'm a betting man And I would put that downstairs on a table But we do a lot right again with this very lean team most important though are the stories It all comes back to the stories and these stories are crucial and they're critical And we know that people don't fully and understand or invest in an issue Unless they see the human impact and that means we have to tell the stories We have to share the stories and really one of the most successful ways that we've been able to put a face On our stories on our disabled veterans is our victories for veterans PSA campaign As everyone in this room very likely knows The victories for veterans theme PSA's tell the stories of veterans who have been wounded ill or injured And it puts a face on the myriad ways DAV helps them The message presents real veterans who have overcome challenges and found victory for themselves and their families The message that we are trying to convey to the American public with these PSA's is that all of these true stories? Are just a few of the victories that our organization helps to make possible each and every year These are television PSA's radio print digital out of home, which are billboards. I think most of you know And how many of you have actually seen a billboard out in the wild? No DAV PSA are really that few usually we have a little bit more. Okay, or just lazy You don't want to raise your hand. That's fine. That's fine. You don't have to raise your hands. I get it It's it's really though. It's incredibly successful because of the stories being told In 2022 we launched a new round of PSA creative Features Adam Alexander of Oshkosh, Wisconsin who survived serious wounds from enemy fire in Afghanistan He's the 2022 as you know 2022 disabled American veteran of the year. He was here with us last year Also included Latoya Lucas from North Carolina. She's an army veteran injured in Iraq and Michael Naranjo another disabled American veteran of the year from back in the late 90s army Vietnam Blinded by an enemy grenade. Last thing he saw was The enemy Vietnam Vietnamese soldier throwing a grenade in his direction. That's the last thing he will ever see But he's an incredible artist and sculpture now sculptor now But and I really when I look up there I'm very proud of something and I want to point it out right now is the diversity that we touch on with this campaign Yeah, yeah, please. Yeah, someone should be following this guy we We have women We have a Native American. We have a black woman. I mean that's incredibly important to us And it's something that we've very much paid attention to We want our PSA campaign to look like when I look out at this audience right now. That's what I want to see That's why I want the American public to see when they think about our organization if I could I'd like to show one of our PSA so I'm not sure if it's automatically going to launch or not if it does just enjoy it. I Don't know actually it's not automatically going to launch so hold on one second. This is Adam Alexander I actually got an extra slide here again 2022 disabled American veteran of the year He was wounded by sniper fire In Afghanistan you got hit and head by a sniper's bullet now He takes his time after recovery and the doctors gave him a very low chance of survival He shares his story with local students. He takes part in a television program in Oshkosh, Wisconsin Called the outpost that talks about veterans issues from the DAV's perspective There we go. I want to see if I can play this bad boy for you Serving in Afghanistan. Okay. Do we have volume? Is that do I volume? I was hit by sniper fire and I was given a 5% chance to live It's a good thing math wasn't my best subject Today I visit classrooms and share my story. I tell kids that with a little help and a lot of work that you can overcome any challenge DAV helps veterans like Adam get the benefits they've earned. They help more than a million veterans every year My victory is being there for the next generation support more victories for veterans go to DAV.org It's a shorter one. It's a 30-second PSA again. We filmed this creative last year and We we wanted to know We know that when we launch new PSA creative we tend to have a bump, right? We tend to do very well We get a lift if you will Serving in Afghanistan. Sorry about that. There we go. So 2022 these are our PSA campaign results again This is this is one year. This is so we last year alone. We had a hundred thirty two million dollars in donated media value over sixteen point seven billion impressions It's a challenge kind of the wrap your head around this and so what I've been doing lately is telling people that the gold standard for Advertising if we had to pay for this advertising which again We are not paying for it. It's actually donated to us Is the Super Bowl ad right? We all know that it takes seven million dollars to get 30 seconds of Super Bowl time So last year 2022 alone. We had 18 Super Bowl ads worth of donated media value to our organization Yeah, we know yep, you can see some of the outlets there NBC Sports HGTV Wall Street Journal, I mean the Wall Street Journal I really need to start keeping track of those because the Wall Street Journal essentially runs a half quarter or full page ad In one of its papers at least two or three times a week. It seems like that's I think of what they're averaging Which is an incredible amount I mean it's just we the we have people who clip these these things and share them with us all the time and people Send us photos from around the country of our billboards and all the unique places that they see them And I do know that we are tracking about the same as we were last year, which was a record-setting year As of June 30th, we are sitting at 66 million dollars in donated media value and 6.5 billion impressions So that's that's incredibly We're heartened to see that right because sometimes you'll have a dip afterwards After a year after it's kind of the creative that's been in the wild it will tend to to drop off a little bit We're not dropping off at all And here's some of the places where you see us. That's Carmen McGinnis. I think at an airport Alex Hasse at an airport Naomi Mathis one of us being issues an NSO at the time and now she works on our legislative team And that's her I think at a train station maybe in Oklahoma if I'm not mistaken, but And here and I love this one. This is my favorite. This is Adam Alex. I'm Alexander's Adam Greathouse. We have too many Adams Adam Greathouse He was a West Virginia veteran injured in Bosnia and now he is On a he was surfing in Florida when we shot that picture and that's him in San Francisco So he's kind of been all over the world for DAV These are we can't expect Results like that all the time, you know, we can't we can't predict what we're going to get But if you look back to 2014 You can see where we have just grown over the years all the way up to 2022 There's a slight dip in 2021 as advertisers started flooding the market again to recoup their pandemic losses But man, you look at that jump in 2022. It's it's really incredible Uh, and you heard Cody, uh, van boxel yesterday in his reports of this convention Mentioned that DAV PSAs have aired more than 1.1 million times on television alone Again, this is these are things that we are we we did not pay for that advertisement. That was donated to us And in total they generated over all this this time 67 billion impressions And that equals more than 743 million dollars in donated media value Very soon probably not this year, but I would predict by next year We're going to cross the billion dollar threshold in terms of donated value Just on this on this campaign one campaign. So it's it's amazing Uh, we work hard though. It's it's we've got great creative We have amazing veterans who are telling their their incredible stories But we also work very hard, uh to to do to conduct outreach We sell these stories, uh to networks Newspapers, uh to basically anyone who will listen we we we take our veterans on pitch tours Uh, just earlier this year, we had Latoya Lucas telling her story to network executives from abc and disney From nbc comcast Several other news organizations Sinclair They take time to meet with us and let Latoya Lucas and I'll tell you what you get Latoya Lucas talking about Being blown up in iraq and having someone from disabled veterans From dav there beside her in a bed in walter reed There's not a dry eye on that and these are some jaded network executives somewhere in new york that we've never met before And you know, they've lived in this this kind of media bubble that they're in And and she breaks that And that's why part of the reason at least why we know that we're we're seeing good results But we can't rely on Latoya Lucas. We can't rely on big networks A lot of our support comes from smaller local stations and that's where each of you can come in There are many factors. We can't guarantee that that we're going to have these kind of results every year Like I mentioned before 2024 is going to be an election year. Guess what's going to happen during election year People are going to buy advertising. They are going to flood the markets with advertising that squeezes out donated media So we absolutely it is critical That we have engaged members at the local level reaching out to New stations what else is going on in the world writers guild strike the actors strike Streaming services taking over big networks, which is where we're getting a lot of our some of our at least a great deal Of our support is coming from big networks, right? So streaming services are taking over and we're trying to make inroads there as well AI there's there are all kinds of factors that are affecting the media landscape right now But what really works what we know works as an organization Local chapters good old face-to-face pitching our stories pitching DAVs PSAs To a tv radio Local billboard owners you can call those billboard owners you can send me your billboard owners in your town If you see an empty billboard owner with a with a phone number on it you send that to me I guarantee I'll make a call before the end of that week trying to get a DAV PSA on that billboard Reach out to us. We have On the members member section of the website as we mentioned we have We have materials that will support that we have a PSA toolkit That helps you to sell these stories To them right it tells you everything best practices how to access the materials Campaign messaging we you know we give you the elevator pitch You just have to rehearse what we've provided you go in and meet with with these stations They will meet with you I guarantee that if someone in a disabled veteran in their community comes in to talk to them about our mission They are going to be there to hear it They want to hear that and if you This slide this next slide this I know it seems very simple just words no pictures But it's incredibly important and that's why I made it look this way This is one of the most important slides and I ask that each of you please not forget this because there is a relationship between our enhanced brand recognition that we are getting from the work that we do the work that each one of you do and From these DAV PSAs as we continue to have this success We have a relationship between our our brand recognition and earn media And earn media is you know, basically it's a fancy word for news coverage It's incredibly important It is vital to our organization that we have local reporters Covering our stories covering what each and every one of you is doing It's free. It's effective. It's the work that you're doing anyway. And whether it's at The national state or local level It is the the work that you're doing is actually gold for a local reporter because I as someone who used to be a local reporter Dan told you was telling you that he and I were were reporters in Okinawa. That was for the Marine Corps But I got out and I was a newspaper journalist for a few years Afterwards and I have another newspaper reporter sitting up on stage with me I'm speaking for myself only when I say that reporters are incredibly lazy And if you will do the work for them, they will greatly appreciate it. Elizabeth is not lazy. I am I was a lazy reporter But a lot of them are if you can do some of their work for them, they will greatly appreciate it So you sell our stories you tell them our stories and they will find a way to help you and that includes This are our latest newest program acquired in 2022, right? These are veteran entrepreneurs that they are new part of the the DAV family I come from a family of entrepreneurs and those are you know veterans and entrepreneurs have always been my heroes And we're going to continue to build and grow this program And we now have these representatives in our communities across the country So they're going to be in your states. They're going to be in your towns Not only should you be supporting their businesses because they're busy, you know growing these businesses Hopefully you are working with your local reporters who you are building these relationships with by going through the publicity guide And using those tips and tricks that we provide you in the member resource section And you are sharing this information about these companies in their in your local communities with them with these reporters Find a way to support them again These folks are trying to start businesses and they're they're busy doing it, right? Things like, uh, let me see we got Chapter involvement things like hunger, right? We're in a tough economy challenging times It's incredibly inspirational to see the work being done for the veterans Who are most vulnerable in our communities these folks who need it most That's a story that a reporter Will get on air I guarantee you I'm not gonna say 10 times out of 10 but I certainly believe nine times out of 10 It's it's very relevant and it really shows d.a.v In a different light than what people are used to really thinking us as right? We're not just a group of disabled veterans taking care narrowly focused on disabled veteran issues We are part we are vital parts of a local community And that includes things like hunger drives that these are things that all of you are doing What seems like old hat to us things that were just you know, like we do this all the time, right? We have camp corral. We have just be kids fundraisers, right? These are things that we kind of check the box on To a reporter that you guys are right out there spending your time giving your time raising money So that children of wounded ill injured and deceased service members Can attend camp and heal? That's again, I call it gold. That's gold. That's a story that is absolutely Wanting every reporter if that lands in their lap, they're gonna want to tell it Media ride-alongs Brian buckwald was sitting there nodding his head. He's like that's absolutely right. He Brian works He covers for our voluntary service department And he has been doing an outstanding job lining up Ride-alongs acting as a go-between between the media the drivers the public affairs head at the hospital because you got to do all this kind of coordinating You know, Brian has bandwidth right nod nod you got banter. Yeah, he's got he's got time You guys make him work harder than he's working right now. He's look at me. He's just sitting there He's got nothing to do get him out there get get him out there doing right ride-alongs Arranging ride-alongs with your volunteer drivers. I know who in here needs volunteer drivers in your area I yeah, exactly all over we need them everywhere Talk to the los vegas to the dav team in los vegas about what happens when you You launch a campaign talk to the folks talk to butch whitehead up in minnesota about what happens When you when you launch a campaign where you get Earned media but behind you In that effort when you have a ride-along with a reporter writing with a a disabled veteran or a volunteer Who is helping disabled veterans get to and from their medical appointments talk to marty panic in in uh in south dakota He just talked to me about it last night. He was uh, you know pleased with those results again Three four five six stories. Maybe more Brian can correct me on i'm probably wrong on that i'm probably underestimating it But they have volunteers who are real results right not just things like impressions not just things like oh, it's a good feel Good story actual results actual volunteers showing up to work as a result of these stories Another one youth volunteerism right You know i've got a daughter who just graduated from college and i've got another one. Uh, who's about two years away from college Uh, one's costed me a lot of money and the other one's getting ready to cost me a lot more And uh, you know, I wish I'd had the older one volunteering at a younger age I wish that I'd known and I I know that there are parents out there in your communities right now Who would love to know that the kids can go volunteer at d. A. B. Hospital or at v. A. Hospitals. Absolutely Uh, there's all kinds of jobs there. They can do things through our lvap programs where they are they are helping local veterans with their needs At their houses they can you know mowing grass Uh, all kinds of different ways that you can help out disabled veterans in your community And they can earn scholarship money for that Believe me I'll talk about with my wife now since dan talked about his that she would love if I had done this uh done this years ago So youth volunteerism incredibly important a big story um, and then i'm gonna wrap up my part, uh on a Kind of a more serious note if I could before I kick it over to elizabeth Another way that we tell our story is with our branding with this logo that we launched Back in 2011 or 12. It's been over 10 years now We really started paying attention To branding in an incredibly significant way back then Um, why are we so serious about the proper use of our logos in all media including print digital video and elsewhere? Um these these this branding It helps set dav apart It provides us with a unique and immediately detectable identity because we only have seconds to convey who we are to the american public Um, we it makes us memorable It helps with other elements of the organization including fund raising the services that we're offering And when it done right when it's done right it encourages the public To support and engage and it brings us it brings pride to every one of you I hope that you guys are proud of wearing that logo, uh on your on your gear on your shirts I know I am I think it's beautiful. Um, you know, and it's partly it's my job to feel that it's beautiful But objectively I think it's beautiful as well Um, how should our brand be used? What are the rules and the guidelines? Which colors are approved? How can you place the logo over something or not over something or in a video? How should we describe and speak about our services and about our initiatives? We have answers. They are available in two documents the dav language guide And the dav brand style book both of those again on the member section of our website the member resources section of dav.org I cannot emphasize to you enough how important this information is It is discouraging sometimes How often we'll come across items that have been produced that use our brand Including our logo that are outside of these guidelines You know small little tweaks here and there we get it sometimes, you know, you you're doing your best But we're talking about some some incredibly egregious violations of our of our logo We see otherwise outstanding pieces of material great collateral great print pieces great videos That work against us because they have imagery They have language that will be confusing to readers that are not They don't they do not live up to the level of this this brand this brand that each of you That this brand represents each of you, right? It does not live up to the to the high bar that you have set as an organization We've invested a tremendous amount of time. I've just invested some time yapping about it just right now so right I mean it is we have a great deal of Care and we put a lot of resources into it. So please I'm asking you to hold the line on this brand and everything that you do The answers that you need Are in the the language guide and brand style book my my my website and my website my email address Is going to be up here at the end of this presentation. You reach out to me if you have any questions Most of you know Doreen brianus on our team She is I think in hockey she'd be called the enforcer when it comes to our brand. Yeah, absolutely Later. Yeah, someone there's someone who probably has got some Doreen scars on them back there. Uh, she is she is, uh, Brutally effective about enforcing our logo standards as she should be Reach out to her When you're making these creative pieces when you're when you have questions do not hesitate to reach out That's what we are here for. Um, we will we'll never turn you down. We will never not help you Um, and if you need any again any additional guidance, it's in that In in those resources as well So to close out this I said this morning, but it's actually this afternoon I'm going to bring up elizabeth deep on pays our communications associate And she's a team member who is also Leading all of our reporting on women veterans issues And she's going to talk to you about the upcoming women veterans report. Thanks Good afternoon All right, so if you haven't heard I'm excited to share with you that um in the coming months d. A. V. Will be releasing its third report on women veterans If you're familiar with the 2014 and 2018 reports, um, we looked at uh, lots of different issues impacting women veterans From access to health care mental health care housing All sorts of things. Um, this third report will really focus in on mental health Including the unique risk factors that women face Outcomes and mental health care and gaps in care Some of the topics will include uh reproductive health care So the impact of pregnancy and menopause on mental health Military sexual trauma, of course, we know that affects men and women but disproportionately women. So we'll look at that We'll also look at suicide and substance use among women veterans Justice Mike here because I can't see my screen There we go As with past reports, uh, this third report will make a series of policy and legislative recommendations to VA policymakers and congress who will also include Stories of women veterans So this for this report to make an impact of course people have to know about it And that's where the communications team comes in If you think about this as a legislative project, they really kind of own the report Once it's ready, they'll turn it over to communications And then it is our job to get it out into the world and in front of as many people as possible So how do we do that? you Rob talked a lot about this we can put as much Data stats analysis as we want in front of people But it doesn't really hit home until they hear Personal stories of veterans directly impacted by these issues And so I've I've had the honor of of meeting lots of women veterans over the past Year or so and collecting their stories And we'll we'll soon be sharing those stories. And so we'll we'll utilize all of dav's channels to do that So dav magazine dav.org of course social media and our dav podcast And we'll use those to tell Stories and to dig into the the different issues in different ways telling the stories in different ways to reach more people We will also work with our outside marketing agency Crosby that we've worked with for a number of years Now they're they're great partners. They really help extend our reach and impact And so they'll help us with Getting op-eds out into national publications We'll also do that through radio media tours media pitching again to garner interest and national coverage We're also looking at an event in dc in front of legislative staff and hopefully legislators Where we'll invite women veterans to come and share their very personal Experiences with some of the issues addressed in the report We're also considering a round table talk Some of you may be familiar with the the facebook show the now defunct unfortunately facebook show red table talk Where we get they get women around a table just to share their stories and kind of a more intimate setting We will also be working with or are working with a documentary Film team filmmakers of here is better So this is a documentary that follows the journey of several veterans men and women As they seek different forms of of treatment for PTSD We worked with the filmmakers. I believe it was last spring spring 2022 To screen a a condensed version of the of the feature film at an event in Cincinnati That condensed version happened to just focus on the women veterans in in the feature film And so when it came time when we were talking about this report on women veterans and mental health It only seemed to to make sense to revisit this documentary and work with their team And so at that dc event that I mentioned We plan to do a screening again a condensed screening. We're also looking at a Virtual screening so we could screen it for da v members and including auxiliary Um, you know over the course of a month so that more and more people get the opportunity to see this film Okay, so how can we put this report to use as I mentioned? It will come with a series of policy and legislative recommendations to put in front of those decision makers Um, it'll help us educate our members Your fellow veterans and families some of the the women veterans I've already spoken to who I've shared some of the preliminary findings with I mean there were things in there that they had never heard of so they were already learning things and they're excited to Not just educate themselves, but to share that knowledge with the people in their community And we're big believers that uh information is is power um, and of course this report and and the stories that will come with it can help you and your local advocacy efforts so when you're talking to your own Va representatives and and local representatives. This will be a good tool for you to Really advocate for yourself and for your fellow veterans I flew through that. I think that's that's all I have If you're just a reminder if you're looking for resources for women veterans. Um, this this is a Good link, but a better link is da v dot org slash women dash veterans And if you have a lead on a story about a woman or women veterans I'm your girl. Please contact me. Um, I might have to dip out if you're early to interview some more women veterans But I'll leave my business cards here Looking for for veterans who are doing great things or have done great things in their community Or or those who illustrate some of these issues that we talk about whether that's reproductive health care or mst We we want to share those stories. So That's my information. Please pick up a card. Thank you. Thanks. Well, thank you, Elizabeth Fantastic information again I pointed out a couple of the the folks out in the audience who are team members We have one more here before we I stop I wanted to point out Victoria short Who in addition to managing specially special projects for our organizations coordinating with fundraising. She also is The key driver of our PSA campaign. So she manages that campaign for us. So and and what yep We also got kevin miller one of our newer team members here as well Somebody he was a marine corps infantry men who somehow found his way into public relations I don't you know, you can talk to him about that interesting journey But it's it's great to have him here I point them out Number one because they richly deserve the credit everything that i'm talking about up here everything that i'm saying Is a result of the work that they're doing. I just get to kind of sit back appreciate it provide the tiniest bit of the guidance and and and some rails for them to stay inside of but it is Truly amazing. I've worked in public relations because of the marine corps I've I've had the opportunity to work in public relations For almost 30 years since I was 18 years old And I've never worked with a more talented team of individuals. I honestly mean that in my life Some of them most of them are here with us this week. Some of them are back in earlanger But they are an incredible group and they I hope that you are As proud at least of the results of what they are putting out As as we are and I tell you it's because of their talent. So if we could get a round of applause for all of them, I'd