Overview

Today, less than 1% of Americans who are eligible to serve in the military actually do, and the ragtag force of volunteers that fought for our independence has evolved into an elite squadron of professional soldiers. As a result, the other 99% of Americans don’t know many veterans — and the divide between veteran and civilian life has grown deeper and more difficult to navigate. This divide has serious consequences for our civilian and military families, especially when it comes to veterans reintegrating into civilian life. Half of returning veterans polled report that adjusting to civilian life is “somewhat or very difficult” (Kaiser/WaPo) — and too few are connected with the many services and strategies that are proven to help with this transition.

Veterans Coming Home began in 2016 as an innovative cross-platform public media campaign that bridges America’s military-civilian divide by telling stories, challenging stereotypes and exploring how the values of service and citizenship are powerful connectors for all Americans. To build an organic conversation onscreen and off, Kindling Group assembled a production “road team” of veterans and civilians to travel the country asking communities about the military-civilian divide, and successful strategies for veteran reintegration. By working with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting – including 14 partner PBS stations – Veterans Coming Home created public media that reflects the voices of communities across the country.

Based on the success of Season One, Veterans Coming Home was greenlit for another season in 2018, this time focused on “finding what works” for veterans as they reintegrate. While some of the most dramatic problems of returning soldiers are well covered in the media, our goal was to highlight proven approaches to overcoming common challenges in coming home, and show how successful veteran reintegration can be a virtuous cycle for veterans and their communities, in four key areas: Health, Relationships, Material needs (jobs, training, housing, etc.), and Sense of Purpose. The project also aimed to help PBS and public radio station partners gain skills in producing and distributing digital content. Through a series of webinars and one-on-one coaching, Kindling Group supported the production of dozens of local stories, exploring digital storytelling structures and strategies for maximizing reach online.

Impact

Developed for the online platforms where today’s generation of young veterans live, Veterans Coming Home offers an unprecedented opportunity for real communication between post-9/11 veterans and their civilian peers.

We’ve worked with an incredible team of impact producers (Micael Bogar, Jennifer MacArthur), Producers (Whitney Dow, Dez Hernandez) and digital strategists (Heidi Boisvert, Erica Sagrans, Jake DiGregorio) to put together a truly unique, first of its kind public media project.

Veterans Coming Home: Bridging the Military-Civilian Divide drove thousands of online and offline conversations between veterans and civilians, and reached over 4,838,538 people with its digital videos. We launched with a video partnership with Vox, and worked with numerous veteran and civilian service organizations to reach their engaged audiences with co-produced videos, op-eds, and photo essays, and Medium posts. More than 50,000 people attended VCH events in person, and our station partners helped raise more than $80,000 towards veteran services.

  • 5,932,112 Online Viewers
  • 2,000,000+ viewers of co-produced Vox video
  • 360+ Digital Videos
  • Nationwide Broadcast
  • 60,000 members of Facebook Community
  • More than 50,000 people attended VCH events in person
  • National Organizational Partners: Veteran service organizations and service-oriented nonprofits co-produced VCH content highlighting unique stories of veteran reintegration

Project Links

Website

Watch Series

Youtube

Acknowledgements