2025 Impact Report

For a downloadable PDF version, please click below:

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“Titles mean nothing, impact is everything”

Executive Summary

Frontline Bud Foundation helps service members learn how to grow cannabis at home and prepare for jobs in the industry.  We do so through digital courses and job placement with affiliate partners.  We served veterans mostly in the Twin Cities Metro Area but did conduct outreach in Brainerd and Ely.  Additionally, our digital courses reached veterans and students across the entire country.  We developed 2 digital courses, attended 3 major cannabis events and recruited 5 long-term volunteers.  Major programs delivered include our digital courses and monthly blog.

Organizational Mission & Values

We exist to help veterans in their cannabis journey.  Mostly in home-growing education as well as career readiness.  Thus far, we have mostly targeted able-bodied veterans as well as those who may already be canna-curious.  Going forward, we would like to eventually find ways within our bandwidth to serve those who may simply just need medicine.  Our values center strongly on self-help, loyalty and transparency.  Both Founding President David and Secretary Jason have seen some of the worst of the Cannabis industry and seek to bring more positivity both to it.

Community Need & Context

Cannabis can be extremely beneficial for veterans.  Despite this, there is still a large stigma, particularly among the veteran community, around cannabis.  This not only includes negative perception of the plant itself but also fear of the loss of VA benefits.  Due to both of these, veterans are often not aware of the potential benefits that cannabis can provide to them as well as the fact that they will not lose benefits if they’re in a legal state*.  We bring awareness to this as well as resources for them should they decide to pursue it further.  Older veterans and veterans living in rural areas are disproportionately impacted due to both geographic as well as cultural factors.  Most major cannabis organizations cater to and sway toward large cities as they are already resource constrained and limited by the friendliness of real estate. We intend to scale our services to address this after the successful completion of our initial programming in the cities.  This will also allow us to procure more resources and make a definitive impact as we do so.

Programs & Activities

• Digital courses
  • First beginners suite created, still ongoing
• Major Blog posts
  • How vets can get a free med card
  • Lighting rebates
• Events
  • MN Growers Ball
  • Legacy Cup
  • Greener Gardens Homegrowers Competition

Equity & Accessibility

Our digital courses were and continue to be free for veterans with service verification.  This has helped reduce financial barriers as not many traditional educational institutions cover cannabis, thus locking them out of an option covered by the GI Bill. The typical fee for non-veterans is still lower than major existing players like Oaksterdam and Green Cultured.  Our courses and blog can also be accessed anywhere since they are online and self-paced.  We do however always recommend checking local laws before proceeding with any material.

Partnerships & Community Trust

In our first year of operations, we established partnerships with the following organizations: Healing Fear Consulting, Canna Connect, Bloom Magazine, Vireo Health/Green Goods, Elevated Equipment Supply, Earl Giles, Legacy Glassworks & Dispensary, Steady Pour, Greener Gardens and EcoGarden Supply.  Some of these are more extensive and encompassing than others but events were a primary area of help from them.  Because of their generosity we were able to not only attend events but vend at them and gain free exposure.  We also relied upon them heavily for mutual referrals; them bringing veterans to our courses and programming and us sending veterans to them for things we’re not experts in such as medical efficacy of the plant.

Lessons learned & Continuous improvement

We learned a lot in our first year of operations, primarily, the importance of funding.  While we appreciate the generosity of partners, we know that we can’t rely upon it as a long-term strategy.  To attend and create events that make the impact we want and to provide more educational material and content, requires money.  Thus far, we have been able to survive on the above mentioned generosity of partners as well as personal funds from Founding President David and Secretary Jason.  To accomplish more of our mission and scale our programming, we intend to apply for more grants and conduct fundraisers including raffles.  We will start to host our own events with the potential to net money after leasing costs with ticket sales, sponsorships, gift bags and other items.  Digital courses and blog posts have received high marks with the only complaint being that there’s a common desire for more of them.  Allocating funds for these courses will allow Founding President David to dedicate more of his time to creating them.

Looking ahead

Our goals for 2026 are numerous: 

• Grants
  • Apply for at least 3 grants: CanRenew, CanTrain and CanGrow.  
  • And win at least one of them.
• Events
  • Attend and platform most major industry conferences in-state including Lucky Leaf and CannaCon
  • Attend and platform most major local grower-related events in Twin-Cities Metro Area including Greener Gardens Homegrowers’ Competition
  • Table at Legacy Cup
  • Table at Doobie Dabbler
• Staff
  • Board- add 2 more board members
    • Need to keep an odd number to break ties.  
    • We are in talks with one particular veteran already in the industry that will likely fill one
    • The other we’d like to have either a female or older generation vet for more diverse perspectives
  • Employees- add one part-time or full-time employee by year end or finalize a 1099 contract for an administrator to ease up time and scale up impact.  Will depend on availability of funds.
• Partnerships
  • VFWs & American Legions- We hope that in the course of our event programming and grants, we can start to develop a relationship with them and let it blossom into a larger state or even national-level one
  • MSOs/Employers- David and Jason are planning to tackle a couple big name companies for official employment referrals for veterans and graduates of our courses.  We will continue to utilize partner agencies for temporary job placement, so this will ultimately just allow us to serve more folks.
• Education
  • Courses
    • Complete the full beginners suite
    • Start an advanced suite
    • Add one niche or unique pathway like wholesaling or photography
    • Increase marketing so that course fees become a meaningful source of revenue
      • Capture more market share of cannabis education
  • Blog
    • Add one post per month
    • Continue to touch on meaningful and relevant topics
    • Maintain accurate information that is not misleading
  • Facility tours
    • We believe that an emphasis on continued tours of cannabis cultivation facilities will yield the insight needed to continue to be considered the top experts in the industry.  Founding President David and Secretary Jason already do relevant and impactful work in their primary jobs but this helps set us apart even further.

Leadership & Governance

Frontline Bud Foundation does not currently have any full time employees.  We operate on a volunteer basis, including the Board of Directors.  We are veteran founded and led as all three Directors have honorably served.  Founding President David is a cultivator at the State’s currently largest producer (Vireo).  Secretary Jason is a representative of one of the most renowned cannabis cultivation facility builders and suppliers (Elevated) and also serves on the board of HeroGrown, another veterans non-profit with a very similar mission to ours.  Board Member Adrian Virges is a serial entrepreneur, father, husband and home (cannabis and veggie) gardener.  Our complementary and overlapping skills and experiences have served us well as we prepare to scale this year.

For volunteers, we have two Event Assistants Brendan Roberts and Deyan Dejan, an Administrative Coordinator Briana Reese, an Event Coordinator Kayla Fearing and a Rosin Ambassador Max King.  They volunteer for us on a case-by-case basis but are not obligated to attend or contribute any particular thing, like the Board is.  Their efforts have been instrumental in not only developing courses but also making our events as successful as they have been.

Call to action

We continue to ask the community for referrals of any veterans they know that might be canna-curious.  In order to serve these veterans better, we also continue to ask for donations at an individual level as well as larger sponsorship opportunities within our events and curriculum.  We look forward to accomplishing the goals we have set out and making the largest positive impact that we can.  As the Directors noted at the first board meeting, all of us are in a prominent spot in the cannabis industry.  Outside of this endeavor, we are already considered successful and are looked up to.  The question is, how can we utilize that in conjunction with the organization to make the largest impact?  Just like our tagline says “Titles mean nothing, impact is everything.”  We believe that our goals are aligned with this.

For questions, comments, concerns; please visit our website at frontlinebudfoundation.org or email us at info at frontline bud foundation dot org.