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Objective Zero, Human Connections Saving Veterans

• Larry Zilliox • Season 3 • Episode 128

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A six-hour phone call changed everything. When a veteran in crisis found someone willing to listen through the night, a simple truth emerged: human connection can save lives. That moment sparked Objective Zero, a peer support network and free app that connects veterans, service members, families, and caregivers with trained volunteers in minutes—no stigma, no red tape, just fast, compassionate help from people who understand your world.

We speak with Executive Director and Co-Founder Betsy Mercado about how Objective Zero blends purpose with smart design. You’ll hear how users can instantly reach a Pathfinder or filter by branch, role, deployments, location, age, and more to find a fast “shortcut of trust.” For those not ready to talk, the app offers suicide and opioid screenings, a mood journal, and energy and symptom tracking—tools that meet you upstream, before crisis builds. Betsy also delves into volunteer onboarding, which includes 20+ hours of training in partnership with Strongstar and PsychArmor, as well as the global time zone coverage that makes the network truly 24/7.

We explore funding and sustainability—from an early Kickstarter to grants and recurring donors—plus a strong partnership with the VA’s Office of Suicide Prevention that helps more veterans enroll in the benefits they’ve earned. Betsy explains how Objective Zero protects privacy, shares anonymized insights responsibly, and invites ethical research to strengthen the field. And while AI supports sentiment analysis and product improvements behind the scenes, the mission remains human-first: technology should amplify empathy, not replace it.

If you care about veteran wellness, including struggles with sleep and insomnia, financial stress, and transition support, as well as evidence-based prevention, this conversation offers concrete steps and real hope. Download the Objective Zero app, share the link with someone you served with, and consider making a donation to help keep the network strong. Subscribe, leave a review, and help us spread the word so more people find support before a crisis hits.

Larry Zilliox:

Good morning. I'm your host, Larry Zilliox, Director of Culinary Services here at the Warrior Retreat at Bull Run. And this week our guest is Betsy Mercado. She's the executive director and a co-founder of an amazing organization called Objective Zero. And they are a nonprofit dedicated to combating military and veteran suicide to a connected peer support community. And they are one of the few that I know of organizations that's managed to integrate technology into the process and into the veteran service organization anti-suicide space in such a way that uh it it's really amazing. They've created a app that can go on your phone. It's free, it's easy to use. I'm convinced that it's it's saved lives. It's it's that good. I have it on my phone. And so uh I asked uh Betsy to come and join us and tell us about the organization and the app. So if you would just tell our listeners a little bit about how the organization got started. I I understand that it was uh basically the the brainchild of your husband, who's a veteran, and uh his buddy, and and kind of took off from there. One thing I'm excited about is that next year in 2026, I think you'll be celebrating your 10-year anniversary.

Betsey Mercado:

That's right. Yes, 10 years next year. And the idea from Objective Zero really came in the fall of 2014 when Justin Miller, one of my fellow co-founders, was struggling with his transition out of the army. Justin did all the right things. He reached out for help and couldn't be seen uh w with a provider for two days. Luckily, Justin was sharing his struggles over Facebook, and my husband, Chris, saw it and reached out to Justin. And Chris is in the infantry, he only has the army provided ACE training. And so he knew to ask Justin about suicide. And Justin's response was had his weapon been loaded the night before, they wouldn't be talking. And so, I mean, how do you respond to that? You know, so Chris just kept Justin on the phone for over six hours. And Justin was just sharing his story, sharing his struggles, and was in a much better place. And so at the end of the call, Chris asked again, are you still thinking about hurting yourself? And Justin's response was, I feel so much better. I just needed someone to listen. And this is really what sparked the idea that the simple act of listening can save lives. And Chris really thought about it, wanted to see like how could we replicate this at scale? And so he had the idea, along with some of uh some amazing uh co-founders of ours, to come up with an Objective Zero app because it really allows us to reach people where they are when you use technology.

Larry Zilliox:

And how do you go about just making an app? I mean, just did Chris or somebody in the group, the co-founders, have experience in creating an app? Or what what's the next step there?

Betsey Mercado:

Luckily, a couple of our folks uh co-founders, like and Kayla Bassett, had some tech background and experience. And so Chris brought together this amazing experience with mainly veterans and service members, and then myself with a spouse, and just really came up with the idea for it. And from there, we just started fundraising and did a Kickstarter to get us off the ground to kind of create this my uh minimal viable product and just had such amazing buy-in from not just the people, our friends and family, but kind of the greater military community at large because they saw this was a a new and innovative way to get people connected. And at the time, I think things were a lot worse when it came to veterans getting support and stigma, uh, service members getting support and stigma. And so a lot of amazing people, a lot of amazing support that really helped us get off the ground.

Larry Zilliox:

Kickstarter is an unusual funding platform, mostly because everybody that brings something to Kickstarter usually has a product, and somebody gives them money based on the product, and they'll be one of the first to get it, and they think it's a great product. But in your case, it was straight up donations. You guys didn't have a product. These people, how many people gave money through Kickstarter? Do you remember?

Betsey Mercado:

It was over 400 people. We raised $38,000 in a in a month. Wow. And so um we we had some incentives, we did some some challenge coins and some t-shirts and um some handwritten letters as thank yous to every person that donated. Uh, but I think when others outside of our our network and our support system saw the value in it, were willing to give, that's how we really knew that we were on to something good.

Larry Zilliox:

Wow. What's been the biggest challenge? I I'm I I'm certain that creating an app to deal with mental health and peer support is a challenge in and of itself. But once you got the app up and running, what did you find was the the biggest challenge for the organization? Is it getting the word out? Is it constantly upgrading the app? Is it making sure that, you know, there's enough peer supporters, what what you guys call pathfinders, which I really like. What was your biggest challenge?

Betsey Mercado:

Yeah, we described one of our biggest challenges at that point. Objective zero was and is still a very small team. We have two full-time employees, a part-time, and we really rely on the support network of our volunteers. We have almost 3,000 of them in all 50 states and in 28 countries, which was something we're really proud of. And it's our our volunteers that really allow us to make the impact and difference so that when we're getting funding, whether from grants or individual donors or wherever that funding is coming in, we can pour that into the technology. And so we're constantly uh improving and building a new update integration as technology improves and there's more opportunities available for us to include evidence-based informed tools and resources.

Larry Zilliox:

So describe for our listeners how the app actually works. I mean, I'm looking at it now on my phone, and one of the things that I like best about it is right up front, the very first thing you say is you see is contact a Pathfinder, which is basically, you know. Hit this button and talk to get some peer support. How how does it work um for just our listeners? They don't, you know, maybe they're not you know all that proficient with their phone, especially when you're talking about somebody, such as myself, a little bit older veteran. But what what what is it? What what do they have to do to get the app?

Betsey Mercado:

The app is available, the Objective Zero app is available on Google Play and Apple App Store. It's free to download, it's free to use, and you really wanted to make it as simple as possible to get connected to support. So when you download the app, um all you need to provide is a handle and your email address. And then from there you can provide as much or as little information as you want. You can build a profile, and when you build a profile, it really helps us match you to other pathfinders. And that's something that's really special about Objective Zero because we have over about 3,000 people willing to provide support. Our our community members, our app users, have the ability to either tap one button and connect to that first pathfinder that's available, or they can filter through our network to find someone most like them. And some of these filterable options include your age, gender, your location, branch of service, your connection to the military, because we also include not just service members and veterans, but their families and caregivers and those that support veterans, um, as well as your military specialty while you served, where you deployed to, and the units that you've served in. And so for us, we've learned that when you're able to connect to someone that has a similar background, it creates this shortcut of trust. We have, like I said, so many thousands of people available, willing to talk on their own time. They're there because they want to help and support others.

Larry Zilliox:

And how does a veteran go about volunteering to be a Pathfinder peer supporter?

Betsey Mercado:

Can can come and volunteer if you're looking to give support. We you go to our website, objectivezero.org, and you hit the give support button, and you can sign up through our website, and we um do some onboarding, some one-on-one onboarding, and then we provide over 20 hours of training. And that's kind of from your basic uh baseline suicide prevention training, like up uh operation say that the the BA has uh everything to crisis response plan training and lethal means safety, and those are virtual live courses that uh we do in uh in partnership with the Strongstar Institute. And so you can do training out on your own uh through our portal at PsychArmor, and then we offer uh additional opportunities to get more training so that we have our Pathfinders as comfortable as possible as they take the calls and texts from those reaching out for support.

Larry Zilliox:

Talk a little bit about, well, first of all, listeners, the webpage is objectivezero.org, objectivezero.org. I want everybody to go to it. Uh there's a lot more there than just the app, okay? There's resources, uh, there's training. There's a tremendous amount on the webpage. So I want everybody to to go to the webpage, check it out, see what's on there, uh post in your social media about the webpage and the resources that are there, and post links to the app so other veterans learn about it. And my regular listeners are gonna know what I'm gonna say right now is that up in that right hand corner where it's usually a red button, it's actually a white button. And it says donate. And so bang on that button and give what you can. This uh app is amazing, and I can't even imagine what it costs to keep it up and running. But uh this organization is almost ready to celebrate their 10th anniversary. So certainly somebody's been around for a while. They will spend your money wisely, and so please, please hit the donate button and give what you can, and then spread the word about the organization as well. Uh, when it comes to funding, what what are your main sources of funding?

Betsey Mercado:

Currently, it's mostly grant funding. We work in the states of Maryland and Virginia. Uh, we have some great recurring donors from CTIA Wireless Foundation, Donce Balor Foundation, and then we get some additional support from organizations like Amazon. We're part of Face the Fight Coalition and have received money, money from that organization as well, so that we can maintain and improve evidence-based features within the app. And uh, one thing that I did not mention, if you don't mind me just adding really quick, in addition to the peer support within the app, we have a host of tools and training and resources. So if you're looking for resources that kind of address many of the everyday stressors that our service and veterans face, we have suicide screenings, opioid screenings, and a mood journal and symptom and energy tracker as well. So if you're not looking for peer support, you may be looking for a tool that can just help you with your everyday wellness. You can use the Objective Zero app for that as well.

Larry Zilliox:

Let's talk a little bit about you're collecting all this information from all of these veterans that are calling that need help. And are you able to use it anonymously for evidence-based research?

Betsey Mercado:

At this point, we have not. Um, we provide anonymized data to some of our partners, um, to the VA so they they understand some of the issues that the veterans are reaching out are using, um, or the issues that they're experiencing. And so we're open to working with uh a university researcher so that we can provide this data because we want to use it for good. Uh we don't we don't sell our data, we it's kept in-house. And um, so it's really important for us to keep that data private and secure, but we know that there are some amazing ways that we can use it. So uh, you know, if anyone's listening that is interested in working with us on doing a research product, research study, uh, we would absolutely love that as well.

Larry Zilliox:

Have you gotten any feedback from the VA that that where they've come back and said this is very valuable, here's what we found.

Betsey Mercado:

An amazing relationship with the VA, especially with the Office of Suicide Prevention. And so we work with their team um kind of on a quarterly basis, sharing uh different resources and such. Um, we're a community partner of the VA, so they're actually sharing this with the veterans within the VA system. And one of our goals is actually how can we get more veterans enrolled in VA benefits, those amazing benefits they've earned that maybe they're hesitant or you know, they they don't know what's available to them. And so that's one of our goals as well, is make sure that we're getting uh those veterans and service members reaching out connected to the things that they've earned and are available to them.

Larry Zilliox:

How do you do that? How how do you use something on the app which, you know, like a pop-up and said, hey, have you registered with the VA? Or how do you push that towards them?

Betsey Mercado:

Actually, recently introduced at the beginning of the year, I guess about 10 months ago, a dynamic social needs assessment. So when you download the app, you have the opportunity to fill it out. And so one of the things that we're looking at is how many people are connected to the VA. And even in conversations from our community members with that Pathfinder, one of the goals of our Pathfinders is understanding the needs and helping veterans get connected to additional resources should they need them. And so a lot of it is lived experience on behalf of our Pathfinders because most of them have already transitioned out and have experienced it. And if we can't help them, we can get them connected to other resources that do help us benefit. So what you know, whether it's a VA or another organization.

Larry Zilliox:

What do you see as far as trending models for veteran suicide? Do you see it leveling off or decreasing? I mean, where we really only have the VA statistics to go on each year, other than Operation Deep Dive, but that's almost four years old now. What do you guys as an organization see when you're looking at your data internally? What are you seeing?

Betsey Mercado:

That's a fantastic question. We're seeing more people reaching out for support, and I think that's a good thing. And on top of that, they're reaching out before they're in crisis. And I think that's something that we're doing, I think a great job of in terms of our marketing that we're we want to make sure that we can address these issues when they're one of the small problems. You know, maybe it's I'm transitioning and I don't know where to do, you know, I don't know where to look to help guide my career after the military. We can get them connected to a place like Onward Ops that does amazing career coaching and for post-transition. You know, I'm really struggling to make ends meet. Let, you know, let's see where we can find some local resources or national resources to get someone connected to immediate financial support because we know specifically when it comes to finances, if a veteran misses a mortgage payment or their car has been repossessed, they're at tremendously higher risk of suicide. And so I I think I see it trending that we're helping people quicker more upstream of the problem.

Larry Zilliox:

What impact do you do you see AI having on your particular app, but on just being able to deliver some sort of technological solutions to this issue?

Betsey Mercado:

I think technology is amazing. And I also want to caveat it that I don't think technology is ever going to replicate or replace human connection, nor should it. And so for us at Objective Zero, it's really important that we are focused on on the person. Humans are more important than hardware or software. And so for us, we're using AI in a way that accompany the tools and the training and the resources that we're providing. So we're using AI kind of on our back end in a way that's uh doing sentiment analysis on conversations. We're doing analysis on the needs assessment and how someone's using the app so that we can incur increase usage, that we can provide the tools, the resources that are needed that maybe we don't have currently within the app. And so for us, it's how can we use AI for good? How do we use technology for good with with keeping that human-centric approach kind of at the forefront of everything we do?

Larry Zilliox:

And when you look at the veterans that are using the app and reaching out for help, what do you see is the the number one issue that they come needing help with?

Betsey Mercado:

One of the biggest ones lately has been issues with sleep and insomnia. Uh many people are reaching out late at night, early morning because they can't sleep. And so, and that could be tied to you know a number of factors to include post-traumatic stress. They they can't sleep because of nightmares, or you know, they they've got a lot on their mind, or simply they're just lonely and they can't sleep and they just need that that connection to someone. And so it varies over time, you know. Sometimes it's financial issues or relationship issues, or we have family members that are reaching out on behalf of a veteran because they just don't know how to best support them. And so it really does vary.

Larry Zilliox:

How do you handle that from a Pathfinder perspective? Do you have Pathfinders staying up all night in case there's a call, or how does that work? I mean, most people, volunteers that I know are asleep at night. So how does it work?

Betsey Mercado:

The wonderful thing about our volunteers is that they're located across the world. And so I have um being, you know, in in America, I have helped a service member in Korea. I have supported someone in Australia because of the time zones and the and the time changes that volunteer network really does activate in a way that we couldn't as a paid staff. And so that's really what keeps us uh available 24-7 is people around the world willing to support us.

Larry Zilliox:

Wow. Where do you see objective zero in five to seven years?

Betsey Mercado:

Fantastic question. You know, one of the goals for objective zero is this point of functional zero. And that is the point at which a person's service or connection to the military is no longer a distinguishing factor in suicide. And for us, it really is how do we find ways to ensure that because someone has served, it's not that additional risk factor. And so for us, it really is growing to better support those that have served. And so it's going to be doing a lot of outreach over the next couple of years. And it's also trying to stay kind of in line with the technological advances. And as more research comes available and as more tools pop up, you know, integrating those in a way that is helpful and not harmful, and really does support our service members, veterans, and family members.

Larry Zilliox:

Well, listeners, the webpage is objectivezero.org. Want everybody to visit the webpage, spread the word, and you guys are part of the uh marketing, really. Um, once you go, look at the resources, think about those you served with and forward that link and say, hey, um, check this out and ask them to forward the link and share it on social media. And while you're there, hit that donate button. But this is uh an amazing organization that's in the veteran service organization space that's doing something that I don't think any other organization is doing. This app is really the gold standard when it comes to finding a way to use technology to help combat veteran uh military suicide. And the fact that anybody military connected can log on, download it, and use it. And let's not forget, we have m many active duty service members that take their own life. We have dependents. I think the last numbers I saw from DOD was 45 dependents from teenage up to adult spouse took their own lives in one year. And so this needs to be a resource that everybody is aware of because they have the capacity to help. There's no limit as to number of people who can log on. And so please, please get that link to the webpage out there and share it and donate and really do whatever you can to get the word out. Well, Betsy, listen, I can't thank you enough for coming on and and explaining everything to our listeners. Uh this is such a valuable resource. It's it's really been a pleasure to speak with you.

Speaker 02:

It was wonderful talking with you, Larry, as well. Thank you so much for for allowing me to share Objective Zero with you and all of your listeners.

Larry Zilliox:

Well, listeners, we'll have another episode next Monday morning at 0500. If you have any questions or suggestions, you can reach us at podcast at willingwarriors.org. You can find us on all the major podcast platforms. We're on YouTube and Wreaths Across America Radio. Until then, thanks for listening.

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