Bringing Veterans Charities Together with Dave McConnell from Listening Post Ayr

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

The Warrior Soul podcast is written, produced, and edited by me, Albert. Our mission is to provide tools, tactics, strategies, and ideas to US military veterans and anybody else willing to listen to help them to navigate toward living their absolute best lives. If you find these episodes helpful, please share them out with somebody that you know of that can use them. And if you really like the podcast, please also head over to iTunes and write us a written rating and review. It really helps us to spread word about the show, and it really helps to get these tools in the hands of others who really need them.

This podcast is sponsored by f bomb nutrition. They make awesome delicious packets of macadamia nut butters. They mix them up with chocolate, with sea salt, with pecan butter. They're absolutely delicious, and they also have a number of other fat fueled snacks, like their meat sticks and their cheese crisps. They're amazing people who are sending boxes of this stuff out to the troops on the front lines, and they're offering 20% off to our listeners on their first orders.

If you head over to www.dropanfbomb.com and use the code Warrior Soul at checkout, you'll get 20% off of that first order. And I'm gonna keep the announcements short and sweet today. If you can, stick around to the end. I got a really special announcement about a brotherhood that we're creating here at Warrior Soul. So I hope you enjoy this episode.

I hope you get a lot out of it. And without delay, let's get into it.

Chris Albert 00:01:41 (link to this point)

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. That's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

We need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul podcast.

Chris Albert 00:02:18 (link to this point)

Hi. What's going on, guys? I've finally gotten my voice back somewhat. Still a little bit weak, but, I think I'm much better than I was the other day when I recorded that other podcast. What I wanted to talk to you guys about real quick before we get into this week's interview is that I get a lot of emails every day from veterans and from others who are looking to help out the cause.

And I have to tell you that I appreciate them. And, I still want you to write me. But here's the the big thing I need you guys to understand. I get emails almost every week from five zero one c threes and organizations that want to be on the show. And I am, in one case, I'm I'm so flattered, and I'm so thankful that people actually want to be on this show.

I think it's it's it's amazing. On the other hand, I'm also only one person. I don't make a million dollars running this show. I don't, have unlimited amounts of time to produce the show. And so I've gotten to the point now where I really have to make decisions about who I'm gonna bring on to the show and who I'm not going to bring on to the show.

Now, the reason why I mentioned the five zero one c threes especially is because what's happened at least over the last ten years is there's been a five zero one c three boom. Meaning, there are literally thousands of five zero one c threes that are out there across the country devoted to helping veterans. A lot of them do really, really good jobs. There's of course some bigger organizations that we know about that don't necessarily do great jobs where the executives are taking, you know, 6 or 7 figure salaries and very little of money that they actually take in actually ever gets to veterans. But a lot of these smaller organizations are run by very hardworking veterans who really want to make an impact. And I appreciate what you guys are doing.

The big problem is this. Because we've got so many small organizations trying to work for veterans, what tends to happen is that they don't communicate with each other. They don't help each other out. They don't share wisdom. And in many cases, lot of these organizations are operating in a small geographic area.

Very much like me, I'm a small business owner. These are small businesses that that don't necessarily have a huge reach, and they're limited in capability. And the big mistake that a lot of these new veteran charity organizers make is that they think that once they start this organization, that everybody's going to want to help out, Right? All of us want to help out veterans, everybody is gonna want to contribute to the cause. And I hate to say this, but that's just not the case.

That's just not how things work. The truth is this, if you are a smaller Veterans charity organization, in a lot of ways, the bigger organizations have stolen your thunder, right? So the big names, the ones that are getting the commercials out there, the ones that are sponsoring sports teams, the ones that are are going all over the place, a lot of people are sending their donations to them. Now, what that means is that when you come around and a lot of you, like I said, are still doing really amazing work, what's happening is that people have already positioned these other organizations in their minds. I'm not saying that this isn't reality, but in their minds as being more important and something that they get need to give their money to first.

So you're running into a lot of issues here because you're you're you're kind of later on the ball field, for lack of a better term. So what happens with a lot of these smaller organizations, they do a lot of really awesome work. They work really hard for a short period of time. And then what happens is they burn out, and they burn out quickly. There's thousands of veteran service organizations that are out there, but there's also been thousands of them that have folded because they just can't get the traction.

So what has to happen in my opinion? Well, number one, what I think needs to happen is that a lot of you smaller guys, you need to be talking to each other. Right? You need to be talking, you need to be trading best practices for success, you need to learn a little bit about marketing, you need to learn about marketing your organization, you need to learn about marketing yourselves. Right?

The other thing that needs to happen is that you gotta start working with each other rather than against each other. So or or rather work, you need to start working with each other rather than in your own little pockets. So for example, you might have a a veterans organization that's down in New Mexico that's doing great work, and then another one that's up in Tennessee. And then that veteran service organization that's down in New Mexico might be getting phone calls from veterans who were up in Tennessee, but they're not getting contact with the other other organization in Tennessee and and sending that veteran there because they either just don't know about them or they they're just not communicating. So my belief is this.

The only way that we're gonna be able to have a greater impact here is not only by taking things upon ourselves, but also by working together. My guest today is mister Dave McConnell. He's got an organization called Listening Post Ayr, and he's doing a lot of great work. He's creating this veterans retreat. There's gonna be places for fishing.

There's gonna be places just to get away out in nature. And I love organizations like this. But the problem is that because they're so local, right? He's got his area. A lot of veterans don't ever get to hear about them. So what I've asked him to do is to start to create a list on his site. And what I wanna do here is that when these five zero one c threes, these veteran charities reach out to me, I want to bring them over to him to get onto this list so that these groups can start promoting each other.

Right? So if you want to go bass fishing, you go see Dave over at Listening Ayr Listening Post Ayr. If you want to learn how to do some woodworking, there's other organizations that can help you out with that. If you want to learn meditation and yoga, there's other organizations that can help you with that. And the gist of this is what we're going to be able to do is create a massive index of all of these great organizations in the geographic areas around The United States, and allow these organizations to start working together, communicating with each other, and start referring veterans to each other.

Because I think, again, this is the only way we're going to move forward. Right? We right now, we're so divided. And I'm not talking about we all hate each other or anything like that, but we're all working in these little cells. Right?

And and not really getting anywhere. And so many of these great organizations are just not able to build up traction. And I'd love to have them all on this show. But again, I'm just one person and I'm not making a living off of this podcast and I have to do what I need to do to to run this as a business and still try to help as many people as I can. And I'm still gonna have people on as I can, as far as these organizations go, but I think this is gonna be a far more effective way of getting word out and helping these organizations to help veterans, which again is the end goal.

So with that, I'm gonna bring you into this interview with mister David McConnell from Listening Post Ayr. And on the show notes for this episode and on the Warrior Soul site, what I'm gonna have is this list linked up in the main menu. So that when you guys are searching to to either find a retreat or find an organization that you could work with, or if you're searching for a friend or a fellow veteran, then you'll have this list in order to refer people to some greater organizations. So let's get into the interview. Hey, Dave, man.

Welcome to the show.

Dave McConnell 00:11:48 (link to this point)

Hey. Thank you, Chris. Glad to be here.

Chris Albert 00:11:51 (link to this point)

You're from Listening Post Ayr. Tell us a little bit about your organization.

Dave McConnell 00:11:57 (link to this point)

Listening Post Ayr was created to help veterans who are struggling basically with everything. We're offering the standard peer support, benefit identification and application, and resource identification, that's out there. But in addition to that right now, we're currently raising, funds to buy a tract to land, 16 acre property with a four acre pond. We're gonna have five tiny homes out there to offer to veterans who are struggling financially, stay out there six to nine months, build up a nest egg, get back up on your feet, and then head back out. We're going to have a community area where we get together, just come out and have a cup of coffee, sit by the pond, fish for some bass, the gardening, working with the local humane society to make animals more adoptable, working with the local community on, just community cleanup, helping people that are needing assistance within the local community to help veterans get back bonded with it.

And then, lastly, we're gonna try to partner with, project Rubicon to muster up a a disaster response team, especially in the area that we're in with the flooding we've had recently. It would have been nice to have an extra team out there.

Chris Albert 00:13:20 (link to this point)

That's that's one thing I think Rubicon's done a great job of is that you can actually start your own team, right, and and in in your area, and I think that's that's an awesome thing. Tell tell me a little bit about your story. I know you said you started in the air force, and then you got out for a bit, and then you went back in in the army. Right?

Dave McConnell 00:13:43 (link to this point)

Right. Back in '84, I joined the air force as a law enforcement specialist. I got to play around on bombing ranges and got played or we got responded to aircraft crashes, and it was just things like the natural disasters with the tornadoes and Mount Pinatubo erupting in The Philippines, blizzard up in South Dakota. Just it seemed like everywhere I went, I had mother nature playing around. But I was moving into the house every year, literally, and wanted my boys to get some kind of stability in life, and they were closing another base that I was at down.

So I was like, I've had enough. I'm getting out. So returned to Nebraska, came home. The army approached me and offered me a position in reserves. I took them up on it, and a little bit later, they offered me the active duty position, which was even better.

So did that, got deployed down to El Salvador for hurricane Mitch relief, and then ended up in Kuwait, Iraq. Retired in 2008 and went through the stereotypical problems that it seems like veterans have been going through lately with the PTSD and the depression and the drinking and doing stupid things and generally just having a nightmare for life. So I decided to finally get my act together, and what I'm trying to do is to keep the troops from making the same mistakes that I made. You know? Yeah.

Yeah. I went through the counseling with the VA. It took three times, and finally, it clicked on, yeah, this stuff does work if you apply it. Know? Know.

Keeps them going to it.

Chris Albert 00:15:24 (link to this point)

That's huge, man. And it's a big reason why this show exists is because, you know, I made a lot of mistakes in my life too, and I I don't want people to repeat those. So so when did it hit you that you had to create the LP?

Dave McConnell 00:15:38 (link to this point)

Oh, I I tried working in the civilian world, and I found I just I to be honest with you, I thought I don't fit in. It's not my cup of tea. What I consider to be teamwork in a team is completely different than what the civilian world defines it as. And it was really, I guess, you call it offensive to me that you we didn't act we didn't work together in the civilian world. It was just it was a catchphrase.

And then I figured, like, go ahead and take advantage of my GI bill, went back to college and got my social work degree, sat there and tried to figure out what I was gonna be when I grew up and what ran across, Sebastian Junger's documentary, The Last Patrol, and that kinda kicked things off on how guys need to be taken care of. You know, we got a bunch of brothers and sisters out there that are struggling, and it started giving me ideas of what I could do to help.

Chris Albert 00:16:33 (link to this point)

Awesome. And then so you just started putting that into action and and you're working to create this facility now. I've so we were talking a little bit about the the landscape out there with five zero one c threes prior to the show. And and one of the things I've been kind of frustrated about is that, you know, I talked to a lot of these organizations. A lot of them call us up.

And they the the thing is, what I noticed is that a lot of these organizations don't talk to each other. And, you know, there there's there's a couple of facilities that I know about there and and and things like that. And and I mentioned to you that a lot of them are working together as teams. What's your take on this? What do what's your take on that idea that that that more of these organizations need to start working together rather than against each other?

Dave McConnell 00:17:30 (link to this point)

No. It's we're we're veteran nonprofits. We were created for one thing, that was to help each other, help other veterans. So if we're losing sight of the mission and we're putting our own personal beliefs, nonprofits ahead of something else just out of some kind of selfish narcissistic idea, it's time to regroup and evaluate what you're doing this for. I can get very upset very fast when we end up falling into that trap of trauma and everything else where we have a mission.

Let's do it. Doesn't matter who's doing it. Just let's get it done.

Chris Albert 00:18:13 (link to this point)

Yeah. I you know, I absolutely agree with you on this. And and, you know, one of the things that I really wanna do and one of the reasons why I wanted to bring you on to the show is because I know there's so many people out there who wanna create these types of organizations, who wanna help. And, you know, the the thing is this, I think that regardless of of what you're doing, you always need to look at the bigger picture. Right?

Because I've said this before, I'll say it again, the veteran the veteran population in this country is the sleeping giant. We can have a massive impact on things if we want to. Right? But we have all have to wake up first. And I think that that the waking up is a is a huge thing that we have to do in the five zero one c three community, because we gotta start working together rather than than at cross purposes.

So one of the things I wanna do here, Dave, is is I wanna and I mentioned to this this to you before we hit record is that I know there's all these different organizations out there. What I wanna do is I wanna start to get all you guys talking. Like, all you guys actually communicating with each other. So and and I'll see this out there right now. If you run an organization like this, I want you to reach out to me.

And then what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna put you in touch with people like Dave and other groups. And what I want is for us to somehow create a network where where if Dave's got somebody who came to him who's out in South Carolina, Dave's out in Nebraska. Right? So it'd be hard to get that veteran out to Nebraska. But if there's a facility out there in North Carolina or Virginia that that could help these that veteran, then I want Dave to be able to reach out to that facility and for you guys to be able to cooperate so that you could actually get help for that veteran.

Dave McConnell 00:20:20 (link to this point)

Right? Exactly. And then you gotta take into consideration that we're also resources for each other. Because if Exactly. If if nonprofit starts struggling with something and we're not and we can't figure it out, you know, it's just the same thing.

You reach out and say, guys, I I need some backup here, and somebody's gonna come up and say, this is how we got through it. And you get over those bumps.

Chris Albert 00:20:43 (link to this point)

Exactly.

Dave McConnell 00:20:44 (link to this point)

It's that whole it's the whole thing of getting together of belonging and being part of a team again. And that's what we need to that's it needs to be fostered.

Chris Albert 00:20:53 (link to this point)

Exactly. Exactly. And so that invitation is is reach out. Let me know who you are. Like, give me give me a a good idea of of who you are, what your organization does, send along your five zero one c three paperwork.

And then what I'll do is I'll connect you with these guys. And the goal, I think, is gonna be to create a kind of debt database. Right? A communications network between organizations like yours and other organizations that are doing great work around the country. And and Dave's a resource.

He was in the military for a long time. He's been doing this work for a while, and he knows what works and what doesn't. And I'm sure there's a lot of you out there who know what works and what doesn't as well. And so this invitation is is to all of the organizations out there. I'll I'll put the the contact information up on the show notes for this episode.

And then what I wanna do is I wanna create a database or a platform for you guys to be able to work together. Because, like I said, there's a lot of you out there doing a lot of great work. But in order to accomplish anything in life, we need each other. We need people. Right?

Right, Dave?

Dave McConnell 00:22:09 (link to this point)

Oh, exactly. And off our website, we can start a directory of state by state, which is a bit you know, you let me you let me know what you've got going on in your area, where you're at, what you do, and I can put it up on our website as, you know, if you can't if you're not around me in the Nebraska area where I can't help, this is who you can go to do. Of course, you can always call me, but, you know, offering up the websites, just another great thing to help each other out.

Chris Albert 00:22:39 (link to this point)

Absolutely. Absolutely. And and that's the thing. And and the more communication we can get between these organizations, whether that's that's creating this directory, whether you guys starting to form up and having your own meetings amongst each other and things like that, I think the the more good work that's going to be done. Because we've been talking about these problems for a long time.

I I mean, I think it's a decade and a half now that we've been really talking about veteran suicide, veteran homelessness, and all these issues. And so, you know, the the big thing I'm saying to everybody out there is this. Let's actually start to to to form up and start to figure out solutions. Right? Because together, we can create solutions.

If we're only working on our own, we're only working at cross purposes, and we're not actually doing what we need to do to actually help these veterans. And we're working for our own glory. And, you know, that's a big reason why I wanted to bring Dave onto the show. I think he's doing great work. But on a on a national level, we need to do a better job.

Alright?

Dave McConnell 00:23:49 (link to this point)

Well, if if it's we're still trying to help the same people that we've been trying to help for the last fifteen years. So something's not we're not doing something right. If it's because we're arguing with each other, then we should be ashamed of ourselves.

Chris Albert 00:24:01 (link to this point)

Exactly.

Dave McConnell 00:24:03 (link to this point)

Exactly.

Chris Albert 00:24:04 (link to this point)

And I won't name any names, but I've seen that on a national level. A lot of these bigger name organizations, they they actively sabotage each other. They actively sabotage other five zero one c threes. They actively seek to to just promote themselves. And a lot of the executives in those bigger organizations, and I'm sure you've seen it from the news stories are making quite the salaries.

Right? And Exactly. I have no problem with people making money. I think that that that it's a huge thing. But if if you're a charity organization, and you're not doing the work you should be doing, then I I I have a huge problem with that.

And so what I wanna do is I wanna get a lot of these organizations that are doing great work to start talking with each other and start helping to facilitate. And I think that together, we're gonna do a much better job than than than apart from each other.

Dave McConnell 00:25:01 (link to this point)

Oh, yeah. We've got there's a a lot of information we can share with each other and a lot to learn off each other. We can we can make things a lot easier. That's for sure.

Chris Albert 00:25:10 (link to this point)

Absolutely. So so, Dave, where where can people come to learn a little bit more about the listening post and, and about yourself?

Dave McConnell 00:25:19 (link to this point)

We've got our website, which is www.lpayr.org. We also can be found on Facebook, but we're trying to shift majority of all of our stuff over to our website. We don't have the same values as Facebook. We prefer to keep our vets off of that platform as much as possible. It seems to cause more problems to be good.

Chris Albert 00:25:48 (link to this point)

Understood. Understood.

Dave McConnell 00:25:50 (link to this point)

The website is gonna be our our main main point of contact. Anyway, the information for contacting us is on the website, and we are available literally 24/7/365. I'm retired military, and this is what I do now. So I have zero problems of getting phone calls at weird hours of night.

Chris Albert 00:26:16 (link to this point)

Nice. Nice. And one thing you might want to look into as an as alternatives to Facebook, there's a lot of encrypted networks you could use, ranging from Telegram to to Voxer to even Slack. I mean, if you set up a Slack channel where you guys can chat amongst each other and things like that without going into Facebook or anything, I think is a is a it's a better alternative if if you're worried about some of the some of the security things going on over there.

Dave McConnell 00:26:53 (link to this point)

I see this is a perfect example of I had no idea about some of the stuff you're talking about. So we definitely need to get networked and start sharing stuff because that's that's what we need is an area where veterans can go out and beat veterans and say what's on their mind without worrying about it coming back to bite them in the ass.

Chris Albert 00:27:10 (link to this point)

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And that that's a huge factor. I mean, like, nobody wants to feel like Big Brother is looking over their shoulders, and there's a lot of technology out there that can can help you get around that.

So and and like I said, we can all help each other with these small things, these small ideas to help improve these organizations.

Dave McConnell 00:27:38 (link to this point)

Because the last thing you want out there is something that you said in an Ativan fueled stupidity.

Chris Albert 00:27:44 (link to this point)

Exactly.

Dave McConnell 00:27:45 (link to this point)

To show up three years later.

Chris Albert 00:27:47 (link to this point)

Exactly. Exactly. So alright, Dave. Well, again, I wanna thank you for coming on today. I wanna thank you for for for allowing me to rant a little bit about what I think what needs to tap in the community, and I I want I wanna thank you for the work you're doing.

Dave McConnell 00:28:05 (link to this point)

I appreciate you having me on, Chris. And and literally, if if veterans aren't taking care of each other, then nobody's gonna be taking care of us.

Chris Albert 00:28:12 (link to this point)

So 100%. 100%. Now you guys, like I said, if you run one of these organizations, let us know. We'll get some contact information up in the show notes, and, we'll start to start to try to coordinate this. And, you know, get out there and live your best lives while you can.

What's going on, gents? This is Chris again, and I wanted to come on here to gauge your interest on something. I've been toying around with this idea for a while, and it's been to create a real brotherhood within what we do here at Warrior Soul, a community of men who are trying to live their best lives. And the concept is called this, the Warrior's Obituary Society. Its purpose is to empower its members to live epic lives worthy of an epic obituary.

And the way it's going to work is this. We've created an eight week development program. That development program is going to take you through a process of getting your body in order, your mind in order, your personal finances in order, your relationships in order, and then once that eight week program is done, then you will take your place. That society is going to be an inner circle, where we hold each other accountable for getting to our goals. We follow through on assignments each month, both mental and physical challenges, and we help in developing other new members who come in.

What I want to do right now is to put this out as a pilot program. And I know that the details are a little bit hazy right now, but if what I just told you seems to pick your interest a little bit, send me an email over at chris@warriorsoulagoge.com. That's chris@warriorsoulagoge.com. What I'd like to do is to pilot this with a few of you to get things started so that you guys can take your place as leaders in developing new members as they come in. This will be a paid program, but I'm not thinking of anything crazy expensive or anything like that.