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Growth & Opportunity
Your next opportunity might be something you don't even know exists yet. Growth & Opportunity connects veterans, service members, and military families with the people, places, knowledge, and experiences that can help them build what's next.
Why this pillar exists
44%
of post-9/11 veterans experience a period of unemployment during their first year after separation.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · Department of Veterans Affairs
33%
of post-9/11 veterans report being underemployed in their first civilian role — earning less and using fewer skills than their military experience warrants.
Institute for Veterans & Military Families · Syracuse University
The barrier isn't skill — it's translation. Veterans exit with leadership, logistics, and crisis-response experience most civilians never develop, but civilian employers, universities, and lenders don't speak that language. That translation gap is where veterans lose income, direction, and confidence.
Esprit connects veterans to the leadership coaches, employers, entrepreneurship programs, and education navigators that already work — and reduces the friction between them and the veterans who need them.
How it works
We work with businesses, universities, veteran organizations, entrepreneurs, financial institutions, professionals, and community partners to create interactive experiences that expose veterans to opportunities they may never otherwise encounter. EDC does not pretend to be the expert in every area — we bring the experts to the community.
Flagship initiative
Experience what's possible.
EDC should avoid becoming another organization that only offers workshops. Workshops have a place, but the philosophy is different: don't just teach it — let people experience it.
Next Mission is a developing EDC initiative that puts veterans and student veterans inside the companies, universities, and industries they might build a future in — for a day, or a week, or a series.
Visit corporate offices, meet veteran employees, explore AI, cybersecurity, product development, tech sales, data + business analysis, complete an interactive challenge, and discover training pathways.
Experience commercial banking, home lending, investments, business banking, risk, corporate finance, and entrepreneurship finance.
Inside startups, incubators, accelerators, veteran-owned companies, venture capital, and small-business organizations. Meet founders, build ideas, understand financing, pitch concepts.
Corporate leadership, consulting, operations, project management, executive mentorship.
Know what you’ve earned
We bring the experts to the community — VA specialists, universities, lenders, entrepreneurs. EDC builds the environment where those connections happen.
GI Bill
Understanding education benefits and how to use them strategically.
VR&E
Education, employment, training, and entrepreneurship pathways.
VA Home Loan
Homeownership education and understanding the benefit.
Education
College, graduate school, certifications, scholarships.
Financial Readiness
Credit, budgeting, investing, homeownership, financial literacy.
Employment
Hiring fairs, résumé support, interviews, networking, employer connections.
Entrepreneurship
Business formation, financing, mentorship, startup resources.
Partner with us
Your company can do more than sponsor a workshop. Invite veterans inside. Let them meet your people. Show them your industry. Give them a problem to solve. Introduce them to careers they may never have considered. Mentor them. Hire them. Help them imagine what's next.
Submission does not guarantee funding, sponsorship, or selection. EDC reviews proposed projects for mission alignment, feasibility, safety, available resources, and potential community impact.
Under this pillar
Programming that puts Growth & Opportunity into practice year-round.
Lead this pillar
Pillar Team Leaders own the calendar, recruit the volunteers, and keep the work moving between events. If you can commit real time and want your fingerprints on something meaningful, this is the door.
How to plug in
Volunteer roles under Growth & Opportunity and direct sponsorship of the Growth & Opportunity Fund. Both feed the same programs.
Volunteer
Career transition and education support is one-to-one work — mentors and facilitators, not event-day shifts.
Sponsor this pillar
Careers, education, and next chapters.
Funds the mentorship pairings, career-transition support, and education stipends that carry veterans and military families into what comes after service.
The other three pillars
Standing with veterans
The companies, nonprofits, universities, and community organizations building Growth & Opportunity alongside the Foundation.
