Second Fundraising Gala Sparkles in San Diego

November, 2008

Three hundred guests joined the IACP leadership to celebrate the accomplishments of the IACP Foundation and its programs at the foundation’s Second Annual Fundraising Gala, which took place Saturday, November 8th in San Diego, CA.

“We raised over $112,000.00 at this gala and this was an opportunity for the foundation to offer a very public ‘thank you’ to all of its corporate and individual donors”, said outgoing foundation chair Major General Joseph C. Carter, “it is only through their contributions and generosity that the we are able to provide the kind of high-quality training and support for survivors that are fast becoming hallmarks of the IACP Foundation.”

Best selling author and guest speaker Joseph Wambaugh surprised the crowd by arriving for the hosted reception that preceded the dinner and spent over an hour mingling with guests, signing autographs and taking photos with many of the lucky attendees.  “I was excited just to come and hear Joe talk,” said one chief and long-time fan of the writer, “but for him to walk among the crowd and to listen him one-on-one was really amazing.”

The gala evening began with a silent auction of sports and pop culture memorabilia along with the hosted reception and continued into dinner with Wambaugh offering remarks and few old ‘cop stories’.  Major General Carter, in his address to the crowd, talked about the impact the foundation has had on professional policing in the past year.  He spoke of the partnership in command-level training provided by Grantham University and Northwestern University Center for Public Safety as well as the extraordinary $500,000 grant from the Motorola Foundation to enhance delivery of the Leadership in Police Organizations curriculum of the IACP’s Center for Police Leadership. 

Finally, he asked attendees to remember the faces of the Survivors’ Education Law Enforcement Trust (SELECT) scholarship recipients that were featured on event signage, reminding everyone that each of the awardees were real people, with real stories of law enforcement sacrifice behind them.

Incoming foundation chair Ron Ruecker closed the evening, again offering his appreciation for the continued support that Motorola has shown to the foundation since its inception as well as introducing a new partnership with Target: the Law Enforcement Business Fellowship.  This fellowship will provide an intensive three-week training program, translating many of Target’s successful corporate training strategies into an instructional course for four command level officers who will participate in the pilot program in summer of 2009.

The board and staff of the IACP Foundation offer sincere thanks to the following organizations that made the foundation’s Second Annual Fundraising Gala such a success:

Dinner Sponsor: Lockheed Martin

Gold Sponsors: Motorola, Northwestern University Center for Public Safety, Target, Verizon Wireless

Silver Sponsors: Digital Ally, JINSA, OnStar by GM,  Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association

Bronze Sponsors: The Alarm Industry Associations, Blauer Manufacturing, DuPont, Ericsson, the LEIM Section of IACP, Nestor Traffic Systems, Dan Rosenblatt, and W.L. Gore and Associates.