Consider the Ravens Seeks to Help Veterans

by Noah Tang

Mental health recently became a high-profile topic, thanks in part to the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet many soldiers suffer with mental health issues for years, even decades. This often leads to suicide among service members, especially veterans.

Consider the Ravens is a student-led business that seeks to remedy these negative trends. Founded in the spring semester of 2021 under the Integrated Business Core program at Cedarville University, Consider the Ravens has recently begun its operations the following semester. The example in Luke 12:24 of God’s provision for the ravens inspired the company name.

Josh Johnson is a Cedarville student and member of the Air Guard. He came up with the idea of Consider the Ravens and serves as its leader. The rest of the members handle internal operations, consisting of finance and inventory, and external operations, also known as marketing. Regular group meetings of various sizes keep the business connected and informed.

According to its website, the mission of Consider the Ravens is “to see suicide rates drop in the military during 2021 and 2022 because of the encouragement from our products.” The business describes its vision as “providing a product which encourages our service men and women in their day-to-day circumstances. Our passion for our troops has driven us from the beginning and continues to drive us into the future. We hope our products raise awareness of the struggles they are facing and encourages them to press on.”

Marketing major Micah Mayse serves as the communication lead for Consider the Ravens. He shares that the business aims to raise awareness for soldiers’ mental health. And in the process, it informs him about the importance of the subject. The ultimate purpose of Consider the Ravens is to give servicemen and women eternal hope. “Our goal is that military personnel will go to our website and thus read about the gospel,” said Mayse.

The company uses its website as its primary evangelistic tool. Contact information for some of its members is posted there in hopes that military personnel will reach out. Besides students’ information, the website also features the Suicide Hotline.

Mayse further explains why the website serves as the company’s primary means of witnessing. As a business, the Consider the Ravens team cannot openly share the Gospel inside the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Any activity that might be seen as promoting religion would be at best unwise within a military base. They are also not allowed to initiate contact with individual soldiers over phone or email because of privacy laws their company is subject to. Rather, the student-owners’ strategy is to use their products–which often have names alluding to the Bible–to get soldiers and veterans to reach out to them.

Brian Shupp, another Marketing major, serves as External Operations Lead. He explains his duties: “A lot of the job is geared toward delegation of tasks for those underneath me, regarding marketing tasks. I also coordinate members of the team and gather information about the tasks they are completing, so I can keep track. Thirdly, I also run the Instagram and Facebook for Consider the Ravens.”

Shupp believes that working for this company has helped him to grow professionally. He has learned much about communicating with social media. Consider the Ravens has also helped him better connect with target audiences: “In marketing, it’s all about empathy.” Due to Consider the Ravens’ mission, Shupp has gotten to meet many who are affected by military suicides, and to understand their perspectives on the issue.

Consider the Ravens can be visited online at www.considertheravens.org and followed on Instagram at @considertheravens_neos.

Noah Tang is a super-senior Business Management major and a writer for Cedars. He likes to spend time with friends, study theology and watch movies.