Nonprofits Create Community is NIA’s theme for 2026, as we celebrate the ways that nonprofits come through for their communities in spite of all the challenges facing them. In this series, meet some NIA-insured nonprofits who share their stories of creating community in their own words.
Meet Gold Coast Veterans Foundation of Ventura County, CA
Beckie Cramer, Executive Director of Gold Coast Veterans Foundation explains:
“Gold Coast Veterans Foundation’s mission is to reduce or eliminate suffering, lowered quality of life, reintegration difficulties, and negative life outcomes for American military veterans.”
How does your nonprofit and your mission create community for the people and places you serve?
Providing essential support and services to veterans of the armed forces.
“Gold Coast Veterans Foundation serves the almost 30,000 veterans in Ventura County with four core services: Housing support, assistance accessing earned veteran benefits, provision of medical and mobility equipment, and emergency support services — including food security and transportation to critical appointments.”
What are your nonprofit’s biggest challenges or obstacles to creating community?
A broad demographic, each with unique individual needs.
“Every veteran is unique, and our demographics are broad — from 95-year-old disabled veterans of the Korean War to young, housing-insecure veterans with small children.
One size never fits all, and we strive to meet the individual needs with compassion and dignity.”
A broker’s take on community in action.
Before a nonprofit can help build community, they need insurance — and brokers are their guide to helping them find coverage, maintain it, and, if needed, make a claim on it.
Gold Coast Veterans Foundation partners with Erin Highberg, a broker with Assured Partners, who helps them get the most value from their NIA coverage.
Highberg shared a broker’s appreciation for the people that serve their community with Gold Coast Veterans Foundation:
“This program has some of the nicest and kindest people I’ve had the opportunity to provide service to.”
