Dear Citizens,

Occasionally, we receive phone calls to our office verifying the legitimacy of telemarketing calls received from our fundraising company soliciting contributions to fund our various charitable programs throughout the year. While we understand and welcome your calls, our office is not staffed on a full time basis and that causes a delay in our returning your phone calls. In an attempt to answer your questions in a timelier manner, we wanted to provide this forum to address some of your concerns.

First, let me start by telling you a little about or organization. The Greensboro Police Officers Association serves two main functions. Our organization consists of members of the Greensboro Police Department, both sworn police officers and non-sworn civilian employees, such as crime scene technicians, telecommunicators, etc. These members pay dues to belong to the association and from these dues, we provide benefits to our members. Our second function is that of a charitable organization. We provide charitable programs to the public in an attempt to enhance the quality of life for members of our community and to build a positive relationship between the public and our organization as a reflection of the men and women of the Greensboro Police Department.

We are a non-profit organization and as such, we rely on public contributions in order to carry out our charitable endeavors and help offset our operating expenses. The donations made by the public go directly towards our programs and we could not exist in our current capacity without your support. Our office does not have the resources necessary to contact members of the community in order to seek donations to fund our programs. Because of that, we employ the services of a professional fundraising company. Currently, that company is On Guard Services Inc., located here in Greensboro. We have contracted them to contact citizens and businesses within our community to solicit donations on our behalf. On Guard Services Inc employs a number of telemarketers that work exclusively to raise funds for the Greensboro Police Officers Association. In the event that you are contacted by one of these solicitors, we want to advise you that they are NOT police officers, and they should not portray themselves as such, but they are authorized to seek donations on our behalf.

The three programs that we are raising funds for this year are a Child Internet Safety Handbook, our Back to School Program, and our annual Shop with a Cop program. Details of these programs can be found on the homepage of our website.

We understand that when using telemarketers to solicit donations, some complaints arise from time to time. Because we do not directly oversee the persons making the phone calls, On Guard Services does, we may not be aware of any problems that may arise. We at the Greensboro Police Officers Association hold ourselves to very high standards and we expect those affiliated with us and working under our name to do the same. We pride ourselves in having very few complaints with our solicitors. Be assured, that if you did have a bad experience, we will work to resolve the problem and make sure that it does not happen again. Therefore, in the event that you had a troubling experience with one of our telemarketers, we ask that you contact us directly to report the incident. It would be helpful if you could provide the date and the time that you received the call, the nature of your complaint, and most importantly, the name of the person that you spoke with.

If you have a complaint, or just a general question about any of our programs, feel free to contact me personally at our office (336) 274-9595 or email me at cmschultheis@greensboropoa.org . I will return your call, or email, as soon as possible. As always, thank you for your continued support of the Greensboro Police Officers Association.

Sincerely,

Chris Schultheis
Secretary/Treasurer
Greensboro Police Officers Association