In The News

FranNet President and COO Jania Bailey.

If you’re a veteran injured in the Iraq or Afghanistan wars and looking for job opportunities, FranNet is prepared to help you out.

FranNet, an international network of franchise consultants, is joining forces with a veterans’ organization to donate money to disabled veterans in need of career opportunities.

How? Starting this month, FranNet will donate money to the Wounded Warrior Project, a nonprofit with locations in eight cities and a mission to help veterans injured in combat adjust to civilian life. FranNet also has arranged to help injured veterans needing work in cities with FranNet offices find local franchise opportunities or franchises that are committed to hiring returning veterans.

Servicemen and women returning from the just-concluded war in Iraq and the continuing war in Afghanistan need job options in a still-sluggish economy, says Jania Bailey, FranNet’s president and chief operating officer. Several of FranNet’s 100 or so franchise consultants are veterans themselves, and FranNet has been searching for the best way to help those wounded in combat.

“This is our way of recognizing their service to our country and the need for them to be brought back into society. We want to support that any way we can. It’s something our group wholeheartedly embraced as the right thing to do,” Bailey says. “These are men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice short of death. They need our country’s support to ensure their service and sacrifice did not inhibit them from having a good life when they get home.”

WWP offers an array of programs and services designed to help injured veterans meet the mental, physical, emotional, social and economic challenges of injuries sustained in combat, such as interactive events to combat post-traumatic stress, health and wellness programs and educational services. All services are free and available to veterans who sustained their injuries in combat after Sept. 11, 2001.

Bailey says veterans make excellent franchise owners because they’re used to working within a highly structured system, following precise directions and persevering through obstacles. The support of this organization also has personal meaning for Bailey, whose son Robert served in the Army for eight years and works now as a civilian contractor for the military. “I realize that could be my son coming back wounded from overseas,” she says. “So it’s very personal to me.”

For nearly 25 years, FranNet, based in Louisville, Ky., has been one of North America’s leaders in matching franchisees with franchise companies. FranNet consultants use a specific profiling and consultative process to determine a business model unique to each client’s goals, skill sets and interests, and have matched thousands of happy entrepreneurs to rewarding small business opportunities.