SANTA MONICA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--To celebrate Military Appreciation Month, the Call of Duty Endowment and Activision Blizzard are announcing this year’s in-game fundraiser and continuing efforts to advocate for veterans through a new policy paper on female veterans’ employment. The policy paper details the obstacles female veterans face when seeking meaningful civilian employment, as well as helpful solutions in reversing these issues.
Launching today is this year’s in-game activation, "Loot for Good", presented by USAA, the first charity extraction challenge within popular DMZ mode, playable in Call of Duty®: Warzone™ 2.0, which will directly benefit the Call of Duty Endowment. For each DMZ match where a player extracts at least $30,000 of in-game cash, Activision will allocate $1 to the Endowment up to $10 per player for a maximum of $1 Million. Players will also be given daily updates touting their progress on the Loot for Good Leaderboard, which will be updated daily based on in-game activity. Players will also receive a free in-game reward for extracting $30,000 in-game. All money allocated will go towards placing veterans in meaningful jobs.
War Hippies, a country music duo, have recorded a new version of their hit single, “The Hangman” with modified lyrics dedicated to the “Loot for Good” campaign. The adapted version of “The Hangman” for the Call of Duty Endowment’s Loot for Good campaign blends Scooter Brown’s gritty vocals and Donnie Reis’s haunting fiddle with new verses that encourage players to loot for good and “do it for the ones who make us free.” U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Army combat veterans Scooter Brown and Donnie Reis, are active in advocacy work that supports their fellow veterans and the military community, which is as much a part of the War Hippies brand as their honest songwriting, tight harmonies and spirited live performances. The new song and video, which features Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 footage, can be found here.
“Loot for Good gives Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 fans the opportunity to directly support our veterans by doing what they love - playing the game,” said Dan Goldenberg, Executive Director of the Call of Duty Endowment and Vice President of Corporate Social Responsibility at Activision Blizzard. “This initiative will not only be fun, but it will draw attention and raise awareness for the importance of finding veterans jobs.”
Over the last 14 years, the Call of Duty Endowment has assisted more than 118,000 veterans find meaningful careers after their military service. The Endowment partners with the most effective nonprofit veterans organizations in both the US and UK to deliver low cost, high value job placement, the service most requested by veterans. In 2022, the Endowment created the most single-year economic value in its history - over $1 billion dollars - for the veterans we helped.
“When we started the Endowment 14 years ago, our goal was to bring the economic plight of veterans to the forefront,” added Goldenberg. “So far, we have placed 118,000 veterans into meaningful careers, but there is plenty more that needs to be done. Especially for female veterans who are 2-3 times more likely to be unemployed than their male counterparts.”
About the Call of Duty Endowment Policy Paper
While the size of our nation’s military has remained steady, the significance of in-uniform and veteran women is steadily growing with 17% and 10% representation, respectively. The percentage of American women in the veteran population is expected to double over the next 17 years. As the impact by women in the military increases, so do the challenges they face upon returning to civilian life. As outlined in this policy paper, For Veterans, the Future is Female: How Women Veterans can get the Civilian Jobs they Deserve, the experiences that transitioning women veterans face are complex, interrelated and many are unique to their gender.
The data is clear that female vets, despite tending to be more educated than their male counterparts, have a much harder time finding a civilian job and are underrepresented in the workforce. Women are more than twice as likely to be unemployed 6 months after completing their service than male veterans. This stands in stark contrast to their growing importance for national defense. As daunting as the barriers faced are, the Call of Duty Endowment’s grantees’ years of concerted effort have shown us how to best support women veterans in achieving high quality employment. Our partners have internalized these learnings and provide women veterans focused solutions, placing them into careers at almost twice their representation in the veteran community. The Endowment has funded the placement of over 16,000 female veterans into meaningful employment. As more and more women enter the military and subsequently complete their service, the Endowment seeks to highlight proven solutions for their post-service employment challenges and enable their future contributions in civilian life.
About the Call of Duty Endowment
The Call of Duty Endowment is a non-profit organization co-founded by Bobby Kotick, the CEO of Activision Blizzard. The Endowment seeks to help veterans find high-quality careers by supporting groups that prepare them for the job market and by raising awareness of the extraordinary value veterans bring to the workplace. For more information about the Call of Duty Endowment, please visit www.callofdutyendowment.org.
ACTIVISION and CALL OF DUTY are trademarks of Activision Publishing, Inc. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their respective owners.
