Two meetings a month, an hour to two hours each. One in person and hybrid, one online. The same five-part agenda every time. Every meeting is structured, and every meeting moves toward something actionable.
We protect the meeting rhythm above everything else, because steady work across a year accomplishes more than a burst of energy that burns out by spring.
Most of our in-person meetings are in the Twin Cities, because that is where most of us are right now. The location moves based on what space is available and where people actually are, and it will keep moving as we grow. Every in-person meeting is also accessible online, so being in the room is an option rather than a requirement.
Lower barrier, easier to make. Good for check-ins, research presentations, and the updates that keep momentum between in-person sessions. If you are outstate, working nights, or have kids at home, this one exists for you.
The Twin Cities is where we start, not where we stop. This state runs from Rochester to the Iron Range to the Boundary Waters where the wolves still run wild, and there are veterans in every stretch of it carrying this alone. That is exactly why every meeting is accessible online. As we grow, we intend to reach people where they actually live rather than asking the whole state to drive to us. And if this ends up reaching past Minnesota, good. The star points north, but it is visible from a long way off.
This is not a someday goal we are parking until we get big. If there is a progressive veteran in Duluth, Moorhead, Rochester, or a town of four hundred people who is already working on something, we want to know, and we will come work with you rather than waiting for you to find us. Outreach to every corner of this state is part of building the foundation, not a reward for finishing it.
The next meeting details are always on the home page and on Get Involved. Put your name in and we will send them to you directly rather than making you check back.
This is a starting framework and the group shapes it over time. What stays locked is the principle: every meeting is structured, and nobody leaves without knowing what happens next.
How is everyone doing. Who is new. A brief personal round to build community before the work begins. We are grounded in who we are, not just what we do.
What moved since the last meeting. Policy developments, VA decisions, national campaigns, local advocacy. Keeps the group current and connected to the larger fight.
One member presents a research finding or a policy issue, or an invited speaker briefs the group. This is how collective knowledge compounds over time instead of living in one person's head.
Hands-on progress on current priorities. The fact sheet, congressional outreach, a published piece, event planning. Every meeting advances something real.
New ideas, new issues, anything a member wants to raise. This is where the coalition's agenda evolves. Action items get assigned before anyone leaves.
This agenda can be extended, reordered, or redesigned based on what the group needs. It is proposed, not imposed. The goal is simply that every meeting is worth everyone's time.
We are building, not executing a plan somebody handed us. First we build the foundation. Then we go from there.
Get the word out and build a real presence, and not just in the metro. Reach the progressive veterans and groups already doing this work in every corner of Minnesota and bring them to one table with shared values. Lock a rhythm people can build around, and produce our first research product. The statewide reach starts now, not after we are established.
Produce research people cite. Bring a prepared coalition to Minnesota's delegation and offer a real briefing, not a complaint. Put our position on the public record. Show up where the Minnesota veteran community already is.
Be the group people call when veterans policy or democratic accountability moves in Minnesota. Testify, submit public comment, organize public action, and drive outcomes we can point to.
We are not waiting on one big victory to tell us this is working. The big ones are built out of the small ones, and the small ones come from connecting people and turning our values into something that actually happened.
A veteran who was carrying this by themselves is now in a room with people who get it. That is not a warm-up for the real work. That is the work, and everything else is downstream of it.
People and organizations pulling in the same direction without knowing about each other end up at the same table, sharing the same research. Connection compounds. One introduction can be worth a year of solo effort.
The Minneapolis VA fact sheet gets produced, and then gets cited by somebody who is not us. That is the moment a document stops being homework and becomes leverage.
A congressional staffer who did not know we existed takes our call, because we showed up prepared instead of just loud. One real relationship beats a hundred form letters.
Somebody raises an issue nobody had on the list, the room agrees it matters, and the coalition acts on it. That is not a detour from the plan. That is the structure working exactly as designed.
Somebody joins from outside the metro and stops being the only progressive veteran they know. Every name on the map past the 494 loop makes this a Minnesota coalition instead of a Twin Cities one.
People keep showing up. Month after month, through the boring stretches, when nothing is on fire. This is the least dramatic item on the list and the one that makes every other one possible.
Movements that only measure themselves by the big win burn out before it arrives. Counting the small ones is not lowering the bar. It is how you stay in the fight long enough to clear it.
Proposed, not imposed. The first two are the ones that govern all the rest.
Goals are set by the group, not handed down by one person. The causes we take on, the priorities we set, and the work we do are decided in the room. Veterans healthcare is the anchor. Everything past that is the coalition's call. If you show up, you have a say. That is not a courtesy, it is the structure.
Every framework on this site is a starting point, including this one. The agenda, the cadence, the priorities, the structure. All of it is subject to revision as we learn what works and as the people in this coalition change. We would rather be the group that adjusts than the group that was right once and stopped listening.
This coalition is about building something together, not only fighting something. The relationships we build with each other, and with the broader Minnesota military community, matter as much as any deliverable.
Every meeting produces something. Every commitment from one session is completed before the next, and we track whether we did what we said. Activity that leaves no external trace does not move things forward.
We ground every argument in documented research and we cite sources. We distinguish between what the evidence shows and what we believe. That is what makes us credible in rooms where credibility matters.
We protect the meeting rhythm above everything else. Steady work across a year accomplishes more than intensity that burns people out. This is built to still be here in five years.
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