FBINAA Associate Magazine Oct/Dec 2021

FBINAA CHARITABLE FOUNDATION THE HEART AND HELPING HANDS OF THE ASSOCIATION

F B I N A A . O R G | O C T / D E C 2 0 2 1

A few of the FBINAA Charitable Foundation Board members at a recent Section Meeting.

T he FBINAA Charitable Foundation was created in 2010 to meet a critical need of the National Academy Associates. There is no legal way for the association to give emergency assis- tance to our members, regardless of how worthy the need. The Charitable Foundation, a separate non-profit, was the best way to solve this dilemma. Aiding the membership through disaster relief, extreme hardship, and personal loss continues to be the backbone purpose of the foundation. Over the past five years alone, disaster and related member assistance has totaled $166,500. As the numbers show, the needs have increased year after year, with some disasters – storms, fires, and the like – becoming more common, and with the Foun- dation becoming more well known among the Associates. We are typically able to act on requests within a matter of hours of receiving them, and we have $2,000 assistance checks in the mail in less than 48 hours. Another area in which the Foundation has made a real impact is its scholarship program. Beginning with five scholarships in 2012, every year we now fund 19 scholarships of $1000.00 each to children and grandchildren of NAA members, as well as two students nominated by the Association of Former Special Agents of the FBI. $91,000.00 has been spent for scholarships just since 2017.

The Science and Innovation Award, a newer undertaking of the Foundation but part of our plan from day one, recognizes a program, product, technology, or process each year for its con- tribution to the advancement of policing. Submissions are very creative and relevant, and each is profiled for the NAA member- ship to spark additional thinking. Previous winners include a public access data portal created by the Toronto Police Service; a ground-up program to combat rampant gift card fraud in Shako- pee, Minnesota; and a customer-focused interactive communica- tion program used in Allen, Texas. Every circumstance mentioned here puts more and more demand on the Foundation. We are happy to be able to contrib- ute, but the needs grow greater each year, and our desire to offer even greater benefits to members means that our need to grow assets continues without pause. Although we have strong cor- porate financial support for some of our programs, much of the Foundation’s assets are a direct result of chapter and individual contributions across a wide range of options. For example, sev- eral of our annual scholarships are sponsored by NAA chapters. This not only allows a chapter to make a collective donation on behalf of its members, but it frees up funding to be used for criti- cal areas like personal hardship and disaster relief.

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