Mission & History
Our Mission
To serve and honor Veterans and their families by empowering them to build meaningful lives through connections to fulfilling careers, benefits and services; and to proactively strengthen Veteran communities through leadership and collaboration.
Our Core Values
Commitment to Excellence – We provide valued, relevant and tailored services for our clients, partners and communities.
Calling – We serve with passion and commitment. We are called to this significant work.
Teamwork – We are caring, knowledgeable individuals delivering quality services as a team. Everyone contributes to the collective good.
Respect – We honor clients, stakeholders and each other with compassion and dignity.
Stewardship – We are unwavering in the proper handling of the lives, information and resources entrusted to us.
Integrity – We hold honesty, fairness and ethical behavior as non-negotiable.
We can't fulfill this mission without you!
Join us today as we continue to serve Veterans who served us all - many at great cost!
Our History
Still Serving Veterans (aka SSV or Still Serving Vets) was established as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization February 8, 2006 by Will Webb, Jerry Gabig, and Becky Pillsbury. Their goal was to help severely wounded Veterans with the transition to civilian life and help them secure VA benefits. The founders realized that many non-wounded Veterans were also having difficulty finding and securing employment, so SSV began supporting all Veterans and members of the National Guard or Reserve who were seeking civilian careers and who needed support during the transition process.
SSV expanded from 2013 to 2015 by adding offices in Phenix City, Alabama (Chattahoochee Valley Region) and Birmingham (Central Alabama). The brick-and-mortar Birmingham location was subsequently closed in 2020, but we expanded our ability to support clients virtually with transition skills and job searches in any location.
SSV’s greatest honor was being named a Primary Grantee of the Call of Duty Endowment (CODE) in 2014; a distinction we have earned every year since. CODE provides substantial restricted grants to ten nonprofit organizations in the US and UK that have proven themselves to be among the most effective and efficient at connecting Veterans with high-quality jobs.
SSV’s Career & Transition Program expanded in 2018 with the development of “Navigating the Wilderness”; intensive educational transition workshops for Veterans and their spouses to help them determine the direction of their lives after service.
SSV recognized that some Veterans faced a period of financial instability, usually during the employment “gap” between leaving the military and civilian employment. Without a safety-net, many of those who had served honorably were at risk. SSV added a counselor in 2016 to connect Veterans in need with service providers with our "Veteran Resource Connection" program. Our goal is to refer rather than replicate services. We vet both nonprofit partners and Veterans in need for validity, and personally make introductions. Interactions and outcomes are tracked through Charity Tracker and our own Insightly database.
SSV’s VA Benefit counselors earned American Legion & ADVA (Alabama Department of Veteran Affairs) Certification in 2019 as part of a public/private partnership enabling our counselors to expedite the VA application process for clients. This was a “game changer” regarding SSV’s efficiency and ability to support Veterans and has lightened the load for the local VA office. SSV’s VA Benefit team continuously improves our service model to accommodate a growing client load.
The COVID-19 Pandemic affected every nonprofit organization, and SSV was no exception. However, due to our previous investments in business quality IT services, including virtual technology, our counselors were able to continue to provide a pre-COVID level of services to clients while it was necessary to work remotely.
Still Serving Veterans remains dedicated to helping Veterans and their families build on their military service to create meaningful and fulfilling lives. We help clients create civilian-friendly resumes and LinkedIn profiles, offer mock interviews and salary negotiation skills. We assure that Veterans secure the VA benefits they are entitled to receive, and we connect Veterans to other needed resources.
During 2021, 1,052 SSV Veteran clients found new or better jobs and our goal is to exceed that number in 2022. During 2021 our VA Benefit Counselors helped Veterans secure $3.22M in VA benefits (disability, burial, pension/survivor benefits, education assistance, and more) – exceeding the 2020 total by midyear!
Veterans who were dealing with a personal crisis related to money, housing, food insecurity, mental health issues, homelessness and more were given support and connected with additional resources during 2021. We are expanding our Veteran Resource Connection role to encompass the 13 North Alabama counties that align with Alabama's Workforce Development Region 1. The expanded program, called NAVRNet, has been endorsed by the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs.
All SSV services are provided at no charge to Veterans or employers. Our clients secure the employment they desire, the Veteran benefits they have earned and the emergency services they need with support from our skilled counselors, who are also Veterans.
To “proactively strengthen Veteran communities through leadership and collaboration” is part of SSV’s mission, and we take that role seriously. SSV’s leaders are well-respected experts on Veterans’ affairs and policy on the national and state levels and serve in numerous local and state-wide leadership roles
Our board and staff are dedicated to the support of Veterans who have given so much to serve our country, often at a great personal price. Every day Still Serving Veterans reinforces Huntsville’s reputation as a military-friendly community with the support we provide.