The Global SOF 5 Year Report

This is a summary of the 5 Year SITREP on the Global SOF Foundation. Read the full report here.

There’s been some huge things happening in 2019… It was the 75th Anniversary of D-Day. The Women’s Soccer World Cup was a big deal. And Iron Man died (and if you didn’t know that yet, that’s on you). 

But there was also another big milestone… 2019 marked the 5th anniversary of the Global SOF Foundation! 🎉
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We celebrated.

If you missed our 5 year anniversary party, we’re sorry for you! We took our Annual Tampa Reception presented by Bank of America Merrill Lynch during SOFIC week and we amped it up… let’s say 5 times!

Our event moved to the trendy new Armature Works in Tampa, and we had well over 850 members of our SOF community attend. Corporate partners like Insitu and Axiologic Solutions sponsored the event, and we brought back Speed Networking… which people really like as an opportunity to make new connections. 

This was back in May, so we aren’t going to harp on it too much… if you missed it, learn about it all through words, videos, and photos from our Thriving at Five blog.
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Now…the report.

It was a great celebration, but now it’s over, and it’s time to actually dig deeper into what the GSF has accomplished in its five years.

Which is why we’ve released a “5 Year SITREP” to our members and partners.

For those who don’t know, SITREP is short for a Situation Report, and it’s a common way to summarize a situation in the military. We followed a similar structure to a typical SITREP, so we’re going to walk through the report section by section.

PS: Shout out to our Partner Tier 1 Group, shown in the cover photo!
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The Situation:

Makes sense that a SITREP would start with a Situation. Right? But it’s basically a summary of where we are. For our 5 year report, we focused on the people and organizations in our community… because that’s the core of what we do.

The big numbers for us include individual members, which are annual members, active duty members (#free), and lifetime members. These are folks who get our newsletter, get event discounts, get access to our job board, and special privileges at our events!

By the way, if you’re not already in this group, you’re welcome to join today: https://gsof.org/individual-membership/

We also take a look at the number of countries we have in our global organization, which is incredibly important because we want to be as inclusive as possible with our Partner Nations… we’re sitting pretty at 59, but we definitely want to increase that number.

And of course, our Corporate Partners are key to our Foundation, providing essential capabilities and experience, from small businesses to goliaths in the industry!
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Actions to Date:

Our report also covers the actions to date… essentially a really cool timeline. 

It’s exciting to put things like this together, because we’ve actually done so much that it’s hard to narrow the activities down to one page. 

But this timeline covers growth from launch parties to first US Symposiums to inaugural European events and more.

What we’ve added in the last year are some of the most inspiring things… the Modern Warfare Symposium, our podcast, and the growth of our team.
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Actions to be Completed:

So we’ve talked about where we are and where we’ve been… let’s talk about where we’re going.

First up is the major events, and there is a big change… we are postponing the Tampa Symposium until 2021. There are several reasons for this, including:

1. SOCOM’s biennial ISOF Week in May 2020 is going to be a “bigger” event under GEN Clarke; we intend to have a more active presence that week.
2. The GSF will hold a SOF Imperatives Forum on Feb. 12, 2020 on Capitol Hill.
3. We will devote more time and resources to both the Oct. 2020 Symposium in Warsaw and the Modern Warfare Symposium, Expo, and Demo Days in Nov. 2020. 

So please update your calendars. Also update them with the events we do have coming up:

• Global SOF Symposium in Belgium, 1-3 OCT 2019
• Modern Warfare Week in North Carolina, 19-22 NOV 2019
• SOF Imperatives Forum in Washington, DC, 12 FEB 2020
• Annual Tampa Reception, 11 MAY 2020

And those are just main events… as always there’s a lot more on our calendar. Bookmark it… live it… breathe it… 
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Maintain Comms:

The last part of the report is a gentle reminder of all of the ways you can stay up to date with all of the Global SOF happenings… we have the blog (you’re here!), podcasts, videos, social media, emails, events, and so much more. 

If you’re missing out on any of these, you’re missing out on opportunities to grow your network and be part of an organization that’s having an impact on the international SOF community.

So read our full report now… and get involved in the GSF! 

Read the full report here.