We worked with the Veterans Assistance Project (VAP) on the development of an economic impact model. The VAP is a New York-based program that provides disabled, low-income veterans with pro bono legal assistance on issues related to their claims for service-connected disability compensation from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

The economic impact model could be used, in part, to demonstrate to staff, volunteers, and funders the economic benefit derived as a result of the VAP's work. We put together a fully automated model, whereby an administrative professional from the VAP inputs a client's race, ethnicity, gender, age, and settlement payment – indicating whether it's a monthly payment or a lump sum payment. The model then projects those cash flows out over a number of different time horizons, discounts them back, and generates the net present value of those payments over the remainder of the client's life. (Life expectancy is estimated by linking the client's age, gender, and race/ethnicity to a series of lifing tables.)