When Verenice Castillo became a military spouse, she felt isolated and alone. She thought the feeling would go away eventually, but every time she and her family moved to a new station the same feeling would return.

“I would feel the lack of community, I would feel like I didn’t belong there,” she said. “That’s the reason why I decided to do something.”

Castillo wanted to help other spouses who were going through the same thing – to support them and mentor them. She created the Military Spouse Advocacy Network (MSAN), a nonprofit to not only help spouses navigate military life, but also to empower them to build community and become leaders in their own rights. Now, a decade since launching MSAN, the organization is stronger than ever, and thrives in part with the support of USAA (the United Services Automobile Association).

“I wanted to make sure no one [else] was overwhelmed, or thinking that they were on their own,” said Castillo.

Her experience was far from unique. According to an MSAN survey, 74% of military spouses say they’re not very knowledgeable about programs and resources available to them, while 63% said that training before PCSing was “extremely beneficial.” A full 90% of spouses who responded requested a mentor.

MSAN has developed three core areas to meet those needs. The first is a virtual resource center – called the HUB, an acronym for Help Us Bridge military families – where spouses can
request mentors, ask questions, and find everything from available support programs to advocates who have expertise in areas like career development and employment, caregiving,
and mental health.

The HUB offers a range of learning opportunities, like courses on financial readiness and how to deploy like a pro. It also features community groups and discussions, including spouse groups by military branch, new military spouse support, and career journeys. The vetted advocates lead discussion threads and topics, while fellow spouses might simply seek out like-minded people with whom to commiserate and connect.

MSAN’s peer-to-peer mentorship program is where spouses can find one-on-one support, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They can connect virtually, through the MSAN HUB, or with
mentors in their communities. Marivel Ramos, a military spouse and the MSAN Military Spouse Mentorship Program Director, said that questions for mentors can range from logistical – like where to get a military ID and what to take overseas – to how to handle a first deployment.

The third pillar of MSAN’s work is its Military Spouse Leadership Development Program. It’s an intensive, four-month class that helps military spouses pursue their interests and become
leaders in their own fields and communities. This year, a grant from USAA allowed MSAN to add yet another cohort to its program and continue to expand opportunities.

One of the program’s training areas, for example, is meta-leadership and conflict resolution, which reframes the practice of leadership through a holistic approach that leverages an entire
community to achieve unity of effort and purpose. Another is collaboration, which facilitates a cohort of service-minded people and gives them access to supportive agencies and individuals for greater impact.

For Danille Lankford, a MSLDP alumna, the program was transformational. “The MSLDP gave me an opportunity to focus on what I was passionate about, which was military spouse employment, and to really hone in on what I wanted to achieve and to make that actionable,” she said.

“We would hear from folks at Harvard University and learn about communication and mental health and taking care of ourselves and the people around us. That gave me the tools to take
something a little bit further that I was already working on and take that back into my community.”

For Castillo, the founder of MSAN, Lankford’s experience is exactly what the leadership program is designed for.

“I don’t want anybody to feel that there’s no way out,” she continued. “We’re providing support not just in the beginning, but empowering spouses to become leaders in their communities.”