 Hey folks, thanks for tuning in. My name is Todd Hunter, Assistant National Communications Director for DAV. Now, we normally like to do these information seminars with all of our members at our annual midwinter conference in Washington, D.C., as well as our national convention, wherever that might be. This past year, scheduled to go to Dallas, but obviously because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we unfortunately had to cancel. But that doesn't mean we don't want to get some information to you, and that's what we're doing here today. With me, my special guest is DAV's Inspector General Ed Hartman. Ed, thanks for joining us today. I'm hoping you can just introduce yourself a little bit to our audience. Absolutely. Thanks, Todd. Of course, many folks will know me as Ed Hartman. I've been DAV's Inspector General for the last 12 years. Prior to my appointment as Inspector General, I'd served 13 years in many capacities to include a National Service Officer, National Appeals Officer, and our Director of Voluntary Services over the last 25 years. So it's been a good, long career for me. I enjoy it. And as our Inspector General, tell us a little bit of kind of what that entails for you. As DAV's Inspector General, it's very broad. It's primarily to maintain our positive image in the community and to ensure that all of our members, chapters, and departments are in full compliance with the Constitution and bylaws of our organization at all levels. Okay. And as most folks know, we are a non-profit organization. We rely solely upon the very generous donations of the American public to continue our operations, giving free services to the men and women who served. Tell me why some people donate to our entities? I think it's, we have a very pure mission in terms of what we do as an organization. And I think that the general public sees that, understands that. And as a result of that, rewards us in terms of providing donations to us. Over the last 100 years, we have been widely known and very highly recognized as being the premier organization of providing services to disabled veterans and their families of all eras. Not just a particular era of veterans, but any veteran of any era. And of course, we do that through a variety of methods, whether that's through our service programs or advocacy programs. So, we've developed and have polished a very good reputation over the last 100 years that people can see what we do. They know that when they give to DAV, we are going to put their money to good use and certainly do all that we can to assist disabled veterans and their families at all levels throughout the country. Okay. So, what kind of activities can DAV departments and chapters support? So, typically DAV departments and chapters are really more focused on programs and services provided at the local level in their communities. So, in many instances, it's a matter of supporting their service officer program, whether that be their chapter service officer, their department service officers. It could be their DAV transportation network for which we are very widely known. Yep. Every year we provide, you know, better than 100 vehicles and vans that are donated to VA medical centers across the country. We provide the volunteers to drive those vans out in the communities, pick up veterans, getting them to their health care appointments at VA facilities to get the care that they're entitled to. And in many instances that are is really a life-saving care. They can also support our VAVS programs, of course, which many of our chapters and departments do, where our local chapter members go into VA facilities throughout the country, provide recreational opportunities for the inpatients at the hospital, volunteer in the outpatient clinics during the course of the day. They also provide the same services at state operated veterans facilities and nursing homes across the country as well. So, in addition, of course, DAVs over the last probably 20 years or so has been very well recognized for involvement with our rehabilitative events associated with the Winter Sports Clinic and more recently the T-Tournament. So, all of those things that are DAV branded, that DAV is in one way, shape or form associated with, those are all activities that DAV departments and chapters can certainly support without any question in terms of anyone coming back to them and questioning where their donation went that it wasn't necessarily spent on a DAV related activity. So, we also have our national service program, our charitable service trust and Columbia Trust, which are all DAV exclusive that DAV chapters and departments can certainly continue to support in the future that would absolutely qualify as a DAV appropriate expenditure of funds. Okay, you talk about acceptable expenditures of funds. Tell me, can you run down a little bit of kind of what kind of expenditures are considered unacceptable? Sure, there are a good number of unacceptable expenditures. One thing that we have to remember is when we go out from the community and we present ourselves as the American public, whether that be in front of a Walmart or a fan's club or a grocery store and we ask for donations. We're doing so using the name of DAV. So, it's our responsibility to spend those funds as provided by the donor. One thing that we should absolutely never find ourselves in a position of doing is providing those donated funds directly to other veteran service organizations. So, it makes no sense for DAV members to stand out and conduct forget-me-not drives to raise money to support DAV programs in their communities to simply turn around the very next month and provide a blanket donation or a general donation to another non-profit veteran service organization. If donors wanted those funds to be provided to another veteran's organization, they certainly would have provided them directly to them. They provided those funds to DAV and so they have an expectation and we have an obligation to ensure that those funds are spent on DAV specific programs. Now, that's not to say that DAV departments and chapters cannot support very unique and specific programs that are provided by other non-profit organizations. For example, if there's a homeless veteran stand down that's being sponsored by another veteran service organization or a homeless veteran's program or a food pantry of some sort that benefits exclusively disabled veterans and their families, we can absolutely support those so long as those donations are earmarked and very specifically for those programs so that in the future if the public comes back to us and they catch wind of the fact that we may have supported another organization, we can say yes, we did so but for this very specific purpose which is in line with our chartered purpose of providing services to disabled veterans and their families. One of the other big no-no's that we see if you will for lack of better terms are donations to organizations that have absolutely positively nothing to do with veterans or their families or anything affiliated with our chartered purpose. So every once in a while we will see donations made to police unions, firefighter associations, churches, youth groups, while each of these organizations are very worthy and very commendable organizations. Donations to those organizations certainly do not fall within any purview of DAB's chartered purpose of assisting ill and injured veterans and their families. Okay. So how is spending by various chapters across the country? How is that tracked and who's responsible for that oversight? Well, one of the accountability is very important to DAB at all levels and it's very important to our donors. Each and every year every entity of DAB is required to provide an annual financial report so that we can show the general public what we are doing with their funds. At the national organization level we have the responsibility of reviewing and providing oversight of all of our 52 state departments which are all 50 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico and a good number of the 1,300 local chapters and communities across the country. Those chapters that bring in more than $50,000 during the course of the year and their fundraising efforts they are required to provide an annual financial report to the national organization as well. And at that time we look at and we validate what they are doing with their funds to ensure that they are spending those funds on appropriate DAB related activities and programs. And then of course in the rare instance when we identify questionable contribution or support of a program that is completely unrelated to DAB we are very quick to contact an entity, remind them of our chartered purpose and get them back in line with supporting truly all DAB related programs. Department leadership also has a very responsible part of renewing these annual financial reports of their chapters because at the end of the day each of those chapters is the subordinate entity of those departments. So we really rely upon our departments to do exactly what we do at the national level when they get those annual financial reports. Look at them, make sure that the expenditures are in line with our chartered purpose. Everything is accounted for so that we can reassure the American public that we're doing what we're supposed to be doing with their money. Okay, awesome. Before we go you got any tips for some of the chapters on how they can be good stewards of our donated funds? Absolutely, I think probably the very best thing to keep in mind is to remember or develop a mindset as a DAB leader, whether we're the commander, the adjunct or the treasurer or the members that are voting on issues at our chapter meetings on what programs we're going to support. Develop the mindset that this isn't our money. This money belongs to the general public. We're just the funnel for which those funds make their way from the public to disabled veterans and their families in the community. So if we can always put that first and foremost in mind that we have an obligation to spend our donors funds in line with their wishes, we'll probably never go wrong. And at the end of the day, as long as we're supporting very specific DAB related and branded and sanctioned programs, we can never get in trouble with the public. We can never get in trouble with the internal revenue service. And one of the things that I always like to keep in mind is that service to veterans is very broad. And of course it varies from community to community. There might be a need in one community for homeless veterans programs. There might be a need in one community for a food pantry. So we don't want to ever find ourselves in a position of telling or dictating what a chapter or department should do with their funds that they bring in from the public. So long as that they are providing those funds in a reasonable way for the benefit of ill and injured veterans and their families of all areas across the country. So if chapter's departments just ask themselves the one very simple question before considering making a donation to any particular program or activity is does this donation from our chapter or our department benefit disabled veterans and their families. And if the answer is overwhelmingly yes, then we are not going to have any problem justifying to the American public the decision of that chapter or department to support that very particular program. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate your time today at this would have been, you know, as much as we all wanted to be in Dallas to be with our members at the convention this year obviously it couldn't happen. But you know we're doing these virtual seminars because we want to get them some and I appreciate that. No doubt there are going to be folks who see this who have additional questions and they want to get a hold of you. So can you put what's the best way to get a hold of you for those? Absolutely the best way to get in touch with me is call National Headquarters and ask for me or simply probably the best way to ensure a very timely response is to shoot an email to me and my email address is simply E-Hartman at DAV.org. Ed Hartman, DAV's Inspector General. Thank you so much for your time today and hope you stay safe through all this and, you know, we'll see each other again. All right, sounds good. Hey, thank you very much, Todd. Take care my friend.