Sometimes the desire to support a good cause turns into a passion—and then a calling. Such has been the case for Steven Cohen with regard to veterans' services. Through the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Foundation, Steve has long supported the Cohen Military Family Clinic at New York University's Langone Medical Center (NYU LMC). He has also funded potentially groundbreaking research on post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury at the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Veterans Center at NYU LMC, Stanford University, and Emory University. But with a son who has served as a US Marine in Iraq and Afghanistan, and an increasing awareness of how difficult it is for many veterans to access care from an overburdened Veteran's Administration (VA) system—particularly access to quality mental health care—he became compelled to do even more.

His goal: to ensure that all veterans and their family members—particularly those who have difficulty tapping VA resources for mental health services—have an affordable (or free) alternative in the form of an easily accessible local clinic. He also wants to ensure that veterans and their families are getting the very best in mental health care, reflecting the latest methods that science has to offer.

At a more granular level, the work involved analyzing the need (identifying locations where wait times for VA services were acute, and/or where mental health services weren't readily available); hammering out a plan for opening a network of clinics; doing due diligence on potential partners; developing and codifying a way to measure progress, learn, and improve in real time; and finding and hiring a leader for the venture overall.

Read the full article about the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Foundation at The Bridgespan Group.