When you walk into the offices of the Institute of Veterans and Military Families, there’s a collage of photos on the right-hand side. Around the center text announcing where you are, there are scenes of Syracuse University serving veterans over multiple decades.

World War I. World War II. Now there are images of the university serving post-9/11 veterans. It’s that history — that commitment — that the IVMF uses to attract partners. That’s the pitch.

“I think that as folks are thinking about whether or not to partner with the IVMF, you’re always looking for signs of long-term sustainability and certainly this kind of commitment speaks to that,” said IVMF Chief Operating Officer Maureen Casey.

Five years ago, the IVMF got off the ground with a large investment from JPMorgan Chase & Co. Now, five years later, the largest financial institution in the world has invested another $13.8 million into the institute, which aims to help SU continue its long history of transforming the services and resources relating to veterans and their families.

The IVMF is a soft money institution, which means it doesn’t receive money from SU. So partnerships like the JPMorgan Chase one allow the IVMF to survive.

The process for creating the IVMF began with the expansion of Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV), one of the entrepreneurship and small business programs offered by the institute.

As EBV endured more success, there was an “opportunity recognition” moment for the university, said Mike Haynie, the founder of the IVMF and the vice chancellor for veteran and military affairs at SU.  There wasn’t an interdisciplinary academic institute focused on veterans and their families anywhere in the United States.

“To me that didn’t make a whole lot of sense,” Haynie said.

Haynie ended up in a meeting room with officials from JPMorgan Chase, including then-Co-Chief Operating Officer Frank Bisignano. Haynie had prepared a presentation of about 40 slides. He never had to use it. With the pitch of SU’s history and an overview of what they were trying to do, he had the fish on the line.

Now he jokes that the meeting lasted about seven minutes and the SU officials walked out of the meeting room with $7.5 million to launch the institute.

“I think the success in the conversation we had with JPMorgan Chase was not about doing research and the impact that could have or the policy analyses and the impact that could have,” Haynie said, “but it really was about how we could effectively leverage what higher education does well — teach, train and inspire — to develop our programs such that we expand both the breadth and the reach of those programs to have real, tangible impacts on veterans and their families.”

Partnering with SU was a “natural selection,” said current JPMorgan Chase COO Matt Zames.

“Our support for veterans and their families spans business cycles. We’re not doing this when times are good and then going away when times are bad. We’re fully committed, and the commitment we made to the IVMF goes back five years, and we have recommitted for the next five years,” he said. “We do what’s right for the veteran and for our country, and what the IVMF does is consistent with that.”

With the initial funding in hand, the IVMF was ready to grow.

Programs and services offered by the institute have expanded to address different issues related to veterans affairs — from entrepreneurship and small business to career preparation and employment.

“Without their support, these programs and services wouldn’t be available,” said Jim McDonough, the managing director of programs and services for the IVMF. “It should not be taken for granted that one partnership allowed us to reach an untapped population.”

Not only did the JPMorgan Chase partnership allow the institute to get off the ground, but it provided a level of respect for future partners, IVMF officials said.

Ray Toenniessen, the managing director of development and external relations for IVMF, has binders upon binders representing each of the IVMF’s partners in his office. He’s the money guy.

“You bring a behemoth like JPMorgan Chase on and other companies look to that and say: ‘If the largest financial institution in the world is making an investment in them, there’s some credibility there,’”  Toenniessen said.

Take, for example, a three-week stretch in March of last year. The IVMF raised $8.5 million during that time.

“If we don’t continue to push against the status quo and continually look to do different things, then we’ll stagnate and die,” said Haynie, the founder of IVMF.

In the span of five years, the IVMF has created the first of its kind institute. It’s expanded to provide more programs to serve veterans and their families. All that wouldn’t have been possible without JPMorgan Chase, SU officials said.

“I think myself, the other SU folks and the JPMorgan Chase folks, none of us thought it would grow and become what it is today,” Haynie said. “But the reality is that the big and early gift made all the difference in the world.”

Published on April 4, 2016 at 11:13 pm

Contact Justin: jmatting@syr.edu | @jmattingly306