The Future is Now  

BY JACK McMANUS

By the time this issue of The Veteran is in your hands, the VVA National Board of Directors will have completed a series of recommended actions that fully address the organization’s future and that will be considered in August by the delegates to the National Convention in New Orleans.

I will present The Plan for the Future to the delegates in detail following the Convention’s Opening ceremonies on Wednesday, August 6. The plan was mandated by a resolution adopted at the 2023 Convention in Orlando and also addresses the 2019 Plan for Dissolution. It includes a proposed plan of succession that centers on a VVA Legacy organization.

For too long the question of the actual date that VVA, as a national VSO, will be dissolved has been deferred—in other words, kicked down the road—by ambiguous resolutions adopted at previous Conventions. Those actions have made it nearly impossible to do any orderly planning for VVA’s future.

Not having a firm date of dissolution also has created a huge amount of uncertainty for our chapters and state councils. If The Plan for the Future, as recommended by the National Board of Directors, is approved by the delegates in New Orleans, VVA’s end date will be March 1, 2028.

For one thing, March 1 will mark the 50th anniversary of VVA’s founding. It is altogether fitting and proper that Vietnam Veterans of America, a wartime VSO, will have been actively “In Service to America,” as our official motto puts it, for half a century. This is an outstanding achievement of which every VVA member can be proud.

This end date will allow sufficient time for the legal non-profit organization dissolution requirements of New York (where VVA incorporated in 1978) to be submitted to the state’s Attorney General and then be presented to the delegates at the 2027 VVA Convention. That timeframe also gives VVA’s accountants and lawyers the entire 2027-28 fiscal year, which ends on February 28, 2028, sufficient time to provide a clean closeout and shift any remaining assets that VVA may hold.

Our Plan for the Future projects that each chapter and state council, as independent or separate corporations, will have several options. It is the intent of the plan for VVA to provide each chapter and state council guidance and support in addressing their choices. A $1-million fund has been set aside, in compliance with the 2023 Convention resolutions, for that purpose.

If approved by the BOD and the 2025 Convention delegates, it is anticipated that AVVA, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, will be rebranded and restructured as The Vietnam Veterans of America Legacy Society, and will become VVA’s follow-on organization.

This comprehensive plan likely will undergo modifications prior to approval. Suffice it to say, though, that the intent is for every VVA and AVVA member to be a participant in the Legacy Society and continue to receive The Veteran magazine.

The Legacy Society would continue to passionately advocate for veterans’ and descendants’ issues. We have invited younger veterans to participate in this organization that, if approved by the delegates, will take VVA’s spirit and commitment into future generations. These next few months will be critical in determining what type of future is in store for Vietnam Veterans of America.

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