A Message From Our CEO
“WE HAVE SET BOLD GOALS, WHICH I BELIEVE ARE ACHIEVABLE AND NECESSARY TO BUILD THE AIR FORCE AID SOCIETY OF THE FUTURE.” Kaleth O. Wright CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER 18TH CHIEF MASTER SERGEANT OF THE AIR FORCE (RET)
I’m excited to serve at the helm of this great organization that for over 78 years has delivered on the mission of Helping Airmen that has grown to now include Space Force Guardians.
Like Jim mentioned, 2020, “the year of the pandemic,” definitely marks a precedent for us at AFAS. This year ushered in lots of change. Not only were we faced with grappling with the global pandemic we were also dealing with a racial and cultural awakening in our country. Both caused me to take a clear look at AFAS and our business to ensure that we were responding adequately to the growing needs of our service members and their families, and that we were being equitable in how we deliver assistance. As a result, I expanded my leadership team. I challenged myself and them to take a deeper dive into our organization, operations, financials, technology, fundraising and marketing efforts along with hiring practices. We reworked our mission and vision to ensure we are inclusive of both our Airmen and Guardians, and rolled out new core values that better define our identity and culture. We also looked at the current state of our programs and determined there’s a need to re-prioritize how we offer assistance, introduce new programs, and revise our eligibility guidelines. When it comes to our educational grants and merit scholarships, we plan to better engage and partner with Title I high schools along with Historically Black Colleges and Universities nation- wide. Our goal is to ensure that we are expanding awareness of our scholarships and grants within more diverse communities to help those first-generation college students of our Airmen and Guardians. We also evaluated our technology infrastructure to ensure that we’re innovative and better equipped from a program implementation, donor management and marketing perspective to serve our families and donors. We determined there is a need to find a more robust system that we plan to rollout in 2021. Furthermore, we are exploring new corporate and organizational partnerships to substantially increase revenue to achieve our short- and long-term objectives of expanding assistance and offering new programs. We have set bold goals, which I believe are achievable and necessary to build the Air Force Aid Society of the future. I feel good about the progress we’ve made this year and where we’re headed in 2021. A sincere thank you to our Airmen, Guardians, their families. My entire AFAS team, our A&FRCs staff, donors, corporate and organizational partners, and all of our supporters.
Warmly,
AFAS.ORG / 2020 Annual Report
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