ALliance for veteran support

Working to enhance the lives of veterans and their families

Our Mandate

The Alliance for Veteran Support strives to enhance the lives of veterans and their families by discovering and selecting underfunded and transformative programs that tailor to their medical, therapeutic and family support needs. We work with world-renowned medical institutions around the United States in an effort to discover new treatments for Post Traumatic Stress, Traumatic Brain Injury, amputees and burn victims, and to provide medical and psychiatric care to our veterans, wherever they may be.

FOUNDERS

OMAR ITUM | founder

Omar has a long track record of service and execution of major initiatives. In February 2010, after the earthquake in Haiti that left over 200,000 people dead and over one million homeless, Itum launched the Wall Street Disaster Relief Day Initiative: Stand Strong with Haiti, in cooperation with Weill Cornell Medical’s GHESKIO Clinic in Port-Au-Prince, the American Red Cross, UNICEF and the Clinton-Bush Fund. The initiative raised over $550,000, most of which was dedicated to relief efforts and medical provisions in Port-Au-Prince. Shortly thereafter, Itum co-founded the Disaster Relief and Development Fund.

Shifting his focus to the United States, Omar co-founded the Alliance for Veteran Support in 2012, an organization that works with medical institutions serving the needs of veterans and their families. He grew up on an expat base in Saudi Arabia, and remembers clearly the 1991 Gulf War. He credits the U.S. Armed Forces for keeping his family, his friends and the country at large safe in that tumultuous time. This is his way of giving back.

After graduating from the Paul H. Nitze School of International Studies, where he received a Master's in International Relations & Economics, Omar served as the Macroeconomic Analyst for Avesta Capital Advisers, where he covered the financial crisis of 2008, the sovereign debt crisis, the Arab Spring, and emerging market political and debt crises. He subsequently took on roles as Head Trader, Senior Equity Analyst and Macroeconomist at Charter Bridge Capital. Prior to graduate school, Omar attended Choate Rosemary Hall and received a Bachelor's degree in International Relations & Economics. He is currently the Head of International Business Development at Arca Funds, a multi-strategy digital asset hedge fund, blockchain venture fund and NFT infrastructure fund.

PROGRAMS

AVS works with world-class organizations to ensure that our donors' funds are being allocated in ways that best ensure that our veterans and their families are receiving the best possible care. We vet our beneficiaries to the greatest possible extent, and require that they provide us with consistent updates as to how our donors' funds are being allocated. Prior to making a disbursement, our partner programs are required to submit a budget and after funds are released, we ask that they provide letters of acknowledgement and a description of how our funds were spent. We do this to ensure the highest level of transparency, and to ensure that our donors understand that AVS is executing upon its mandate.