The Call of Duty Endowment’s positive impact on SoCal is more than just numbers
In the Call of Duty Endowment’s home base of Southern California—home to the second largest veteran population in the country—the organization has placed 9,300 veterans in high-quality jobs
When your guiding mission is to place as many veterans as possible in rewarding careers, you value each and every one of the over 118,000 success stories you’ve counted so far. But how does it feel to experience that impact most strongly in your own backyard? Well, that’s a level of validation that’s hard to quantify.
But let’s try anyway.
In the Call of Duty Endowment’s home base of Southern California—where over 200,000 veterans also live, the second largest veteran population in the country—the organization has placed 9,300 veterans in high-quality, high-paying jobs. To put that into context, that’s roughly two and a half veterans placed per day consistently over the past 10 years in just Southern California alone.
“We’re both a U.S. and U.K. effort, but Southern California is our home,” says Dan Goldenberg, the endowment’s executive director. “What’s the old saying? ‘Charity begins at home’? We always felt it was important to take stock in how we’re doing here.”
Some of the world’s largest Navy and Marine Corps bases are located in Southern California; Space Force operations are also nearby. It’s no wonder, then, that the region has a dense collection of veterans. It’s also why the Call of Duty Endowment has been able to find equally driven and engaged partners.
“A quarter of our U.S. grantees are based in Southern California, specifically two incredible nonprofits that we fund—JVS SoCal and US VETS—which are also headquartered in L.A.,” says Goldenberg. “There’s a major need here. The cost of living is high, the housing and labor markets are tight. There are very specific economic needs here.”
An estimated $606 million in economic value has been added to the Southern California region, due in large part to those 9,300 veterans employed by the combined efforts of the endowment and its grantees. Endowment staff are happy to take a moment to reflect on what they’ve accomplished, but they can’t help but refocus on the work that still needs to be done.
“Many of the good jobs here in Southern California are highly skilled—think the entertainment or tech industries, which are big here,” says Goldenberg. “I think the challenge is in many cases to prepare veterans to better market themselves for the higher skilled jobs.”
The Call of Duty Endowment isn’t alone. At the corporate level, Activision Blizzard King has a dedicated veteran hiring effort, has an extremely engaged veteran employee network, and is getting ready to celebrate its 10th Annual Veterans Day of Service—all of which work towards opening doors to veterans where they need it most. With a mix of in-office and offsite activities, more than 1,000 Activision Blizzard King employees globally take part to create care packages, give their time to assist local veterans, and support the cause in creative and effective ways.
“We always look at the larger story,” says Goldenberg. “Our company's commitment to veterans locally, our dedicated vet hiring program, our veteran employee network, our volunteer efforts—those support systems and activations. It’s that kind of lasting and meaningful commitment that we strive for.”
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