Bill DeBoer
Senior director of corporate properties and facilities management, Kohler Co.
Steve Cundy
CEO and founder, Tuatara Consulting
Nonprofits served: Taskforce Uplift, Caddie School For Soldiers
On a warm, sunny day in May, more than 100 golfers teed off at Blackwolf Run in Kohler for a fundraiser aimed at uniting several nonprofit organizations under one common goal: supporting U.S. military veterans and their families.
Born out of a need for more collaboration among the veteran community, the inaugural Veteran Alliance Charity Golf Outing is the brainchild of Steve Cundy, head of Sussex-based Tuatara Consulting and a veteran of the U.S. Army, and Bill DeBoer, senior director of corporate properties at Kohler Co. and a veteran of the U.S. Navy.
The men connected in 2022 over charity golf. DeBoer participated in an outing for Taskforce Uplift, a nonprofit Cundy founded in 2021 to provide resources and mentorship to children of veterans. And later that summer, Cundy participated in a golf event supporting the Caddie School For Soldiers, which aims to help veterans overcome the physical and mental stress of combat through a month-long caddie training program in St. Andrews, Scotland. The nonprofit was launched in 2019 in partnership with the Kohler family and company, and DeBoer serves on its board of directors.
Through conversation at those two golf outings, DeBoer and Cundy developed a rapport and decided, rather than hosting two separate events supporting a similar cause, Taskforce Uplift and Caddie School for Soldiers would join forces to put on the Veteran Alliance Charity Golf Outing in 2023.
“We both know that if you can work together, you can amplify the firepower,” said Cundy. “It’s not about individual missions, it’s about missions coming together to take care of the military community, and from my point of view, we weren’t getting that job done.”
Both Cundy and DeBoer had observed the siloed, competitive approach of nonprofit organizations serving the veteran community – often fighting over funding or focusing so intently on a singular mission that they’d miss out on opportunities to collaborate for greater impact. One goal of the golf outing was to “set a new trend and show it’s possible to have nonprofits working together,” said Cundy.
To that end, they invited four other Milwaukee-area nonprofits – Center for Veterans Issues, Milwaukee Homeless Veterans Initiative, Camp Hometown Heroes and Wisconsin VetNet – to be part of the event. On that day, the organizations were stationed at various holes throughout the course and shared their missions and stories of impact with a community of potential new donors.
Planning got under way just four-and-a half months ahead of the inaugural Veteran Alliance outing, but Cundy and DeBoer were still able recruit nearly 50 corporate sponsors, with Kohler Co. stepping up as the premier gold sponsor.
“The major sponsors put a lot of money and faith that this was something they wanted to invest in, both their money and their time to show up. That was a big thing to get them and to sell the reason to support this,” said DeBoer, adding every sponsor he’s spoken to since the event has expressed interest in returning next year – and yes, there will be an event next year.
The 2023 Veteran Alliance Charity Golf Outing raised just shy of its $100,000 goal, equaling out to nearly $50,000 each for Taskforce Uplift and Caddie School For Soldiers. The impact doesn’t stop there.
“What we’ve opened up now are more lanes, more avenues for people to see where they can help, want to help because they see what others are trying to do,” said DeBoer.
