Time of Transition

It is transition time for the Denise Amber Lee Foundation. Since our inception in June of 2008, we have been working under the umbrella of the Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice. This has been a wonderful relationship and allowed us to focus on our mission of raising awareness of the inefficiencies in the country’s 9-1-1 system. They handled the legal and paperwork issues of a 501 (c) 3 non-profit.

As we have traveled the country telling our story, our vision has focused into areas and causes that can better be addressed by being on our own. So we currently are in the process of establishing our own 501 (c) 3 and 501 (c) 4 corporations. This will give us the flexibility to work with state and local legislatures to promote uniform, mandatory training standards.

This is an expensive and time consuming process as the review of our non-profit application with the IRS can take up to 6-8 months. It also is hampering our ability to commit to events and raise funds. Therefore, we have continued our non-profit, tax exempt fund with the Gulf Coast Community Foundation until the IRS finishes its review. We do, however, have our own tax ID set up for direct non-tax exempt contributions to help us with expenses during this time of transition. Please continue to support us and our effort to improve the 9-1-1 system for all citizens.