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As we celebrate Memorial Day and honor our veterans and military families for their service and sacrifice, I would like to take the opportunity to highlight some of the great work our government is doing to support our veterans.

In a previous post, I briefly discussed my work with the Joining Forces Community Challenge, and the great privilege it was to contribute to an effort in support of our nation's veterans and military families. As a quick recap, the Joining Forces Community Challenge was launched in July 2011 by First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Biden in an effort to recognize and celebrate those citizens and organizations with a demonstrated, genuine, and deep desire to be of service and improve the lives of our military families. The Challenge concluded on April 11th, with a celebration at the White House to announce the five winners and one people's choice nomination.

We got a little pushback on our job description that we posted last week (see it here). People thought that we were either being too honest (potentially chasing off applications), too blunt (scaring people off in the process), or somehow not being sensitive enough to the needs of potential applicants for our position. I think all of those are true. And intentional.

Ascendant Strategy Management Group is looking for a marketing manager in the Washington, DC area to support our rapidly growing social enterprise. As a marketing manager with Ascendant, you'll help us expand our presence by overseeing a wide portfolio of branding and marketing activities, including public relations, e-marketing, social media, collateral design and content writing, plus large conferences too.

Thank you to all the attendees of this year's Mission-Driven Management Summit! The event, held March 6-8th at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, brought together speakers and organizations from around the world to hear case studies and participate in interactive sessions designed to help make the connection between strategy and execution, as well as reach peak performance within an organization.

As a consultant staffed at the Performance Improvement Council, part of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, I have had the privilege of working many initiatives within the Federal Government. One such initiative, focused on our nation's veterans, is the Joining Forces Community Challenge. The Joining Forces Community Challenge was launched in July 2011 by the First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Biden in an effort to recognize and celebrate those citizens and organizations with a demonstrated, genuine, and deep desire to be of service and improve the lives of our military families.

As the year winds down and we get ready to celebrate Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa, I wanted to take a moment to stop and thank the people who we've been fortunate to work with over the past year. The work that our clients do on a daily basis is both incredible and inspirational, and we're incredibly fortunate to play a small role in helping them advance their mission.

Why do you want to go to the Mission-Driven Summit this year? Ascendant wants to know, and in return, we're awarding two FREE all-access passes to MDMS 2012. All you need to do is shoot, edit, and post a video to our Facebook page that says why YOU should be the attend MDMS 2012.

Regardless of your position on America's wars, past or present, I think we would all agree that our Veterans deserve a day to be honored. They have served our country, protecting the everyday freedoms of folks like you and me. I'm not writing this post to highlight any issues, positive or negative, surrounding our Veterans, but simply to show my support and say thank you.